Ike's Buff Problem
by The Unspoken Prophet
Summary: The fourth Smash Bros. tournament is about to begin, and Ike's back for more action... along with his ridiculous amount of muscles! But the whole mansion will soon find out that Ike's new buffness is more than anyone bargained for.
1. Diagnosis

"Ike, you have to see the doctor. Something's super wrong with you," Marth insisted, dragging his best friend Ike towards the infirmary, although the prince had to use both hands just to grab on to one of Ike's super buff arms.

"But why?" Ike asked.

"Because," Marth said, "you weren't half as dumb as this in Brawl." Since the Brawl tournament, Ike had put on a ridiculous amount of muscle and had somehow lost a big portion of his intelligence.

"Huh? Whaddya mean?" Ike wondered, his memories of Brawl having long since been erased from his goldfish-like brain.

Marth sighed. "Never mind."

XXX

Dr. Mario turned towards Marth with a sad expression on his face. "Your friend here," the doctor said, gesturing towards Ike, "is suffering from a severe case of 'Sudden Buffness Brainpower Loss.'"

"What's that?" Marth asked, worried. Ike, in the background, was drooling at a picture of a rooster on the wall.

Dr. Mario tapped a pen against the clipboard he held. "Well, in simple terms, it means that he got too buff too quickly, and his brain, alas, is unused to having to manage so many new muscles. He'll be dumb like this for a while until he gets used to all his muscles."

"So nothing's permanently wrong with him?"

"Absolutely not. He's fine, although you might want to keep a safe distance from him until he regains intelligence. SBBL victims often are unaware of the extent of their own power. He might accidentally punch you through a wall. Even just a high five could be disastrous."

Dr. Mario turned to Ike. "Ok, Ike. I know what's wrong with you, but I have to check to make sure using my foolproof diagnosis technique. I'm going to ask you a few questions," he said, and then muttered to himself, "I had to use this on Little Mac many years ago."

"Yay!" Ike clapped, causing the medical equipment to clatter as if there were an earthquake.

Dr. Mario took a deep breath and said, "Ike, what's one plus one?"

Marth squinted at the doctor weirdly.

"Uhhhh..." Ike struggled to think as he held up his pointer fingers and tried to put them together. After a moment, he burst out, "I got it! It's eleven!"

"Little Mac said the same thing," Dr. Mario sighed as he made a check mark on a paper. He reached over to a table and held up a picture of Kirby wearing a Mario hat. "Who is this?"

A few long minutes dragged by as Ike stared blankly and slack-jawed at the picture. Finally he answered, "Is it food? I'm kinda hungry."

Marth facepalmed. "I'm gonna have to deal with _this_ for the next few months?"

"Unfortunately," the doctor said as he made another check mark on his paper and scribbled down a few words. "Now onto the next test." He pulled open a drawer and lifted up an obviously plastic chicken leg. Ike gasped and his eyes suddenly took on a feral gleam. Before Dr. Mario had a chance to ask Ike what the chicken leg was, the buff mercenary bellowed so loudly, Link went deaf a few miles away.

"CHICKEN!"

Ike sprang at the poor doctor, who, with his quick reflexes, threw the chicken away in a desperate attempt to save himself. It didn't work, though, because Ike was too slow to change direction and plowed into Dr. Mario, who crashed through the wall and into the next room. Ike leapt to his feet, spinning around wildly as he tried to find the chicken. Of all places, it had landed in Marth's lap where he sat, paralyzed, in a chair.

"GIMME MY CHICKEN!" Ike howled like a deranged beast.

Marth screamed like a girl (which was pretty normal for him) and threw the chicken out the window, which was opened a little. With a cry of "MY CHICKEN!" Ike dove headfirst through the window, causing shards of glass to fly through the air like glittering daggers. Luckily, Marth's body armor saved him from injury and Dr. Mario was still out cold in the other room where Ike flung him, too far to get cut by the glass.

Outside, Ike pounced on the chicken and caused the concrete to crack as he landed on it. He gulped down the plastic chicken and said, "Mmmmm!"

With a resigned sigh, Marth picked his way through the glass shards over to where Dr. Mario lay in a crumpled heap. The prince shook Dr. Mario on the shoulder. The doctor's eyes fluttered open.

Dr. Mario said in a daze, "At least he knew what it was."

XXX

**AN: So, what sort of trouble is Ike going to get into? This is my first fic, so any suggestions are welcome!**


	2. The First Day of the Ike-pocalypse

Ike sat in the training room, watching Marth and Link (with repaired eardrums) practice-spar against each other. Marth had told him to sit out because he might smash someone through a wall, and so Ike had agreed (mostly because Marth had promised him KFC later).

Said prince was currently dodging one of Link's arrows. It flew past him and embedded itself in the wall, which was already peppered with small holes from many other battles. Marth launched a Shield Breaker towards Link, but the somewhat buff Hylian hero managed to roll behind Marth and catch him with a spin attack. "Good one!" Ike cheered, stomping his feet in approval and making the earth rumble. Marth and Link lost their footing and fell down on their butts for the tenth time.

Marth breathed deeply and counted to ten before trusting himself to open his mouth without screaming at Ike. He asked Link, "Do you think we should call it a day?"

Link nodded, making an annoyed face. He made some hand motions that Marth interpreted as _It's not like we can fight well anyway with Ike here the way he is. _Link got to his feet and dusted off his tunic. He signed _I'm going to go find Pit _and left.

Ike leapt off the bench where he sat, unintentionally pushing it a few inches into the floor. "Let's go to KFC!" he shouted. Chicken-related subjects were the only things that Ike could consistently remember for more than a few minutes at a time.

Marth felt himself being pulled up by his left arm in a bone-crushing grip. There was an audible and painful crack as Ike accidentally squeezed Marth's arm too hard. The prince squealed in pain, but Ike misunderstood it as a squeal of excitement.

"I can't wait to get to KFC either!" he said, and gave Marth a friendly "pat" on the back. Marth had just enough time to think, _I'm too pretty to die,_ before he was launched at the wall.

"Hey, bro! You never told me you learned how to fly!" Ike called after him as he smashed through wall after wall.

XXX

ROB, who did all the repairs around the mansion, had just fixed up the broken wall in Dr. Mario's office when he registered the sound of something crashing through walls, along with Marth screaming. ROB got as close as a robot could to sighing and rolled away to find the newly broken walls.

XXX

Marth awoke to the cacophony of frantic screaming and video game noises. After he shook the stars from his eyes, he recognized the voices as Pit and Palutena and the game as Mario Kart 8. Looking over, he saw that Link was there too, silent as ever.

Marth tried to get to his feet, but he gasped in pain and collapsed to the floor again when a lancing pain shot through his arm, reminding him that Ike had crushed it. He took in his surroundings, recognizing the room as Pit's. There was a Marth-shaped hole behind him and wall debris was everywhere. Somehow, the Mario Karters had been so engrossed in their game that they hadn't noticed Marth yet. How did he end up here anyway? Pit's room was nowhere near the training room.

"PIT! How dare you!" Palutena screeched when Pit smote her character, Waluigi, in midair with a boomerang, sending her from second place to fifth.

"Sorry, Lady Palutena," Pit said, but he didn't sound very sorry. Marth could easily imagine the massive grin on his face.

"Hi," Marth croaked.

All three players jolted in shock and turned around simultaneously. Their characters onscreen started dropping through the ranks as CPUs passed them until Link had the sense to pause.

"Ike smashed me through a wall. Or, well, a bunch of walls," Marth explained, saving them some weird questions. "He broke my arm too." Link snorted with amusement.

Palutena nodded as if this made perfect sense and tapped Marth's arm with her staff, healing it completely. Marth sighed in relief as the pain in his arm faded.

Pit frowned at this. "Lady Palutena, how come you never heal me like that?"

"Ummm…" Palutena rushed to think up a plausible excuse, but she gave up and simply snapped her fingers, making Pit forget that Marth had ever had a broken arm at all.

"Well, I'm going to go now. See ya," Marth said, getting to his feet. Pit, Palutena, and Link resumed their game, where Palutena quickly got revenge by beaning Pit with all of her triple red shells.

Marth hurried down to the training room before Ike could cause any more carnage.

XXX

Sadly, he was too late. Ike was already gone, as evidenced by an Ike-shaped hole in the door where he had run through without bothering to actually open the door. Marth bit his lip to stop himself from screaming in frustration. He was about to go seek out Lucario for help, but the entire mansion shook from a colossal crash on the west side and Marth fell onto his butt for the eleventh time that day. He sprang up and bolted down the hallway, certain that Ike was the cause of this.

"Poyo!" Kirby complained as he was almost run over.

Marth gave the puffball a quick apology and continued on his way to the western side of the mansion. He began to see smoke drifting from a hallway, so he followed it and was greeted with the sight of a gigantic explosion in the garage, where the vehicles of every smasher were kept. The prince picked his way through all the charred vehicles until he found a perfectly sound and unharmed Ike standing among the remains of a car.

Specifically, Marth's super-duper expensive limited-edition special car.

"Oh, Marth!" Ike said, catching sight of him. "I thought you flew to KFC, so I wanted to get your car to go too."

"What the HECKIES did you do to my car?" Marth screamed loudly.

"I put one of these in the key thing. I thought it would work 'cause it had a key in it." Ike held up a round, black bomb with yellow feet, white eyes, and a key in its back: a Bob-omb. It also had a lit fuse.

Marth, seeing the fuse, panicked. "THROW THAT AWAY!" he screamed louder, if that was even possible. He made a move to slap the Bob-omb out of Ike's hand, but as soon as Marth made contact with the bomb, it exploded, causing a chain reaction of explosions of every other vehicle in the garage. Link went deaf again.

Boy, were the other smashers going to be mad about their vehicles.

XXX

**AN: Poor Marth. Dr. Mario left him with the aggravating task of making sure Ike doesn't destroy anything and he already failed. I bet he wishes that he had never met Ike now. Anyway, be sure to leave a review and thanks for dropping by!**

**PS. Ike never gets his KFC.**


	3. The Second Day Isn't Much Better

**Official-sounding disclaimer: This is a work of (fan)fiction. Any resemblance to any persons or places, real or fictional, is purely coincidental.**

XXX

Marth was in the mansion's vast backyard, explaining to Falco why exactly his precious Landmaster was reduced to a pile of scrap metal in the garage when Ike barged in.

"There you are!" Falco exclaimed, narrowing his eyes and jabbing a feather in Ike's direction. "Slippy's gonna be even more annoying than ever when I have to tell him that my Landmaster's now a burnt, useless heap of garbage! What in bread land were you thinking?" Falco knew that Ike _hadn't _been thinking, but he needed to rant at somebody. "You happy now, you absolute moron?"

He continued yelling about how one of Slippy's lectures was worse than listening to a Justin Bieber album, but his words just drifted in one of Ike's ears and out the other. The mercenary was too busy staring intently at Falco with a ravenous look in his eyes.

Marth had spent long enough around Ike to know that he got that look in his eyes whenever he was around chicken (even when he had still been smart). "Run, Falco!" he cried, but it was too late.

"CHICKEN!" Ike hollered, brandishing his holy sword Ragnell and running at the bird faster than Marth had ever seen him move since he became super buff.

Falco screamed and tried to run away, but he was knocked down by a giant muscly mercenary. He thrashed desperately until he managed to clip Ike on the face with his boot and wriggle away in a frantic bid for freedom.

"COME BACK HERE, CHICKEN!" Ike boomed, giving chase. Despite his gigantic, cumbersome muscles, he was still gaining on Falco. Marth acted quickly and grabbed hold of Ike's cape, but Ike was so buff that he didn't even notice the extra flailing weight. Marth couldn't keep up with an enraged and chicken-hungry Ike, and he tripped and began tumbling with one hand still on Ike's cape. It came undone and flew off, leaving Marth lying face down in the dust. He rolled over, facing the sky, and fished his phone out of his pocket, dialing a number.

"Dr. Mario?" he said once the call had connected. "Yeah, it's Marth. I'm just giving you a heads-up that Falco might be needing your help soon. Huh? Yeah, Ike's chasing him right now. He thought Falco was a chicken. Seriously? You can hear him from there? Wow. Bye."

Marth hung up and gave an almighty sigh, getting up slowly and laboriously as if the action required more energy than he had. Falco was making a beeline for the mansion, and Ike was following him in a one-man stampede. As Marth was watching, Ike leaped at Falco with arms outstretched, but he missed and only managed to whack the bird on his feathery heinie. Needless to say, this was effective enough on its own. Falco went flying, crashing through a window on one of the upper stories of the mansion. A shrill, female scream could be heard from the room. There was a slap that sounded like ripping paper.

"My chicken," Ike sniffled, mournfully regarding the broken window and the fact that Falco was no longer within eating range.

Marth, having finally caught up, called Ike's name to get his attention. The super buff mercenary turned around and asked gloomily, "Are you the KFC man?"

"No, Ike."

"Was that blue birdie the KFC man?"

"No, Ike."

Ike sighed heavily and muttered, "No more KFC. I'm hungries…" He fished a few crumpled papers out of his pocket and handed them to Marth.

The prince smoothed out the papers. The first paper was a handwritten note that smelled faintly like garlic. It took Marth a while to decipher it because of its terrible handwriting but finally he made out the words:

"_Listen buddy!_

_Why you blow up my awesome bike! that cost me lots of precious MONEY! _("Money" was underlined several times.) _I no likey when you blow up me bikey! So then I blow up you kfc! no more chickies for you, nasty Mario-worshipper person! Waa hahaha!_

_-not Wario"_

Attached to the note was a cut-out newspaper article. Bold headlines read, "KFC Blown Up by 'Atomic Fart Bomb.'" There was a picture of a collapsed KFC surrounded by police cars and an ambulance. Marth read through the article, trying to stifle his laughter.

_Yesterday night, the KFC on the corner of Convenience Road and Inconspicuous Avenue was blown up by a UFO, or an Unidentified Farting Object. Authorities claim that they detected an unusually high amount of bean and garlic gases in the air after the KFC had been blown up. One employee, Jonathan Smithell, recalls, "I saw a short, fat mustached man in a purple suit and cape walk in. He smelled really stinky. He said, 'I get revenge!' and then the next thing I knew, the building was exploding. Afterwards, I was unharmed, but I had to wash my clothes twenty times and shower for three hours with all of my wife's fruity-scented bath scrubs to completely get rid of the smell." An anonymous bystander also claims that he saw a round purple object flying away through the sky, shooting "puke-colored gases" behind it. Authorities have not been able to collect any more information so far._

"See it?" Ike asked. "No more chickens. I thought the blue birdie was the KFC man, so he would give me chicken. Or maybe he was a chicken, and that would be even better. I want chicken…" Right on cue, his belly rumbled.

Marth, all humor gone, reread the article with a sense of impending doom, realizing exactly what it meant. That had been the nearest KFC for miles and miles, and everyone's vehicles were destroyed. Marth had seen a chicken-deprived Ike before in the Brawl tournament, and that was something he never wanted to see ever again under any circumstances, and especially not with Ike so dumb. Of course, he could raid the items stash for Food, but there were only turkey legs there, and Ike hated turkey.

Marth flipped open his phone again, dialing the same number he had called earlier. "Dr. Mario? Oh, Falco's there already? He's okay, right? …Yeah, but this is about something else. Yes, it's about Ike. Do you know anywhere nearby where I could get lots of fried chicken? Like, _lots and lots_ of fried chicken? …_NO!?_ _Shizzlenuts…!_ Well, Dr. Mario, let me just tell you that you might be needing to stock up on sedatives real soon…"

XXX

**AN: Well, Ike didn't destroy as many things this time, but don't worry. You'll get to see the chicken-deprived Ike soon... Anyway, be sure to leave a review! Thanks for reading!**

**PS. Falco landed in Peach's room. I never got why her slap sounded like that.**

**PPS. Wario-Man's blasting off again...! *ping!***


	4. Ike Has Trouble Telling Clones Apart

Ike was in the kitchen, rummaging through all of the many fridges and pantries in his never-ending quest to find chicken. Unfortunately, no one ever bothered to stock up on chicken because Ike would always eat it first. He was pawing through the Pokemon reps' pantry when a certain blue-haired, cape-wearing person with a girly tiara and a slender sword walked in.

"Hey Marth!" Ike called, slamming the pantry door shut. It cracked, half of it falling off and the other half dangling comically on one hinge.

The person looked towards Ike with sapphire blue eyes set in a deceptively feminine face. However, Ike knew that this was Marth's normal face.

"What's up!" Ike said. "Got any chicken?"

"Um, do I know you?" the tiara-wearing person asked in a deceptively feminine voice. However, Ike knew that this was Marth's normal voice.

"You forgot me?! It's ok Marth. I be Ike!" Ike proclaimed, pointing at himself to emphasize his statement.

"Oh, no no no. You have me confused. My name is Lucina, not Marth. It's a common mistake," the person explained.

If Ike had been at his former intelligence level, he would have already noticed that Lucina's outfit, tiara, and Falchion were different than Marth's, and she had a weird mark in her left eye. But, as it was, Ike merely stared for a moment and then burst out laughing.

"Nice one, Marth! HAHAHA!" he chortled.

Lucina tried again. "No, I'm actually—"

"The joke is up, Marth! I know who you are! Now gimme chicken! I'm hungry. I wanna eat over 9000 jumbo buckets of chicken."

Just then, the real Marth, having been alerted to a potential catastrophe by Ike's thunderous laughter, burst into the scene to discover a bewildered Lucina and a chuckling Ike, although the famished, chicken-deprived gleam was still visible in the mercenary's eyes. Deciding to have mercy on his poor descendant, Marth butted in and said, "Ike, that's actually Lucina."

"Oh, hi Marth!" Ike said. The pathetically miniscule part of his brain that was still used for non-chicken-related thinking hadn't yet registered Marth's words. Ike continued, "Marth here was just telling a funny joke! You should have seen—oh wait…" It was at that moment that the rusty cogs in Ike's head finally managed to grind out a comprehensive thought. Ike did a double-take. And then a triple-take. And then he stopped cold and peered at the two sword users with a piercing, dull glare.

"Wait a minute," he began, and after sixty awkward seconds he pointed an accusing finger at Lucina and bellowed, "YOU AIN'T NO MARTH!" Link went deaf again (right after having his ears fixed from earlier). Then Ike's brain exploded from having had to think too much.

XXX

Well, it didn't actually explode. Ike had just suddenly fallen, probably from his brain having been overloaded with too much to think about at once.

"Ike!" Marth cried at the buff lump that lay on the floor. He looped his arms under Ike's shoulders and tried to lift him up, but he didn't have enough awesome muscles like his friend. Actually, it was better that he wasn't overly buff (or he'd get SBBL too).

"Lucina! Help!" the flimsy prince said.

"Chicken…" Ike moaned.

Lucina, who had been gawking at Ike in shock, snapped out of her confusion and grabbed Ike's ankles. She struggled to lift Ike with all her (meager) strength, but even combined she and Marth still couldn't budge two-hundred-fifty pounds of pure mercenary muscle.

"I'm too weak!" Lucina yelled. "I got your genes!"

"Hey!" Marth protested.

"Looks like you could use a little help." Marth and Lucina stopped struggling and looked up to where the masculine voice had come from. A hooded male figure wearing a black cloak was floating in the air above them. Marth wondered absently how the figure had got there without anyone noticing and why the figure was even there in the first place. The figure descended down like a dignified angel (read: not Pit) and landed lightly a little ways away.

"It's going to be all right," the figure said, closing the distance between himself and the three Fire Emblem reps with a few brisk steps. He pushed back his hood with a casual swipe of his hand, revealing pale silver hair.

"Time to tip the scales!" Robin declared. He brushed past Marth and Lucina and then rolled up his long sleeves so they were out of the way, displaying his hidden buffness (although his muscles weren't nearly as ridiculous as Ike's). He slipped his arms under Ike's limp body and, with a confident smirk, lifted up the heavyweight mercenary as if he weighed no more than a Jigglypuff.

"Wow," Lucina breathed in admiration. "Your muscles are so toned!"

Robin's smirk transformed into a pleased grin. "Thanks, but I can only use them for so much time." He then shifted all of Ike's weight to one arm (Marth gaped in disbelief) and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small red-and-black bottle, which he held between his thumb and index finger. "Which is why I carry my 5-Hour Energy!"

"This is no time for me to rest," Lucina said. She raised a fist in a superhero pose with a valiant shout of "Lucina, away!" Then she ran off in the direction of the infirmary, probably to tell Dr. Mario to prepare himself for a giant unconscious buff mercenary being hauled into his office.

Robin turned to Marth, who was still gaping and had a few saliva strings dangling from his mouth because he hadn't closed it yet. "Maybe you should close your mouth before you eat a fly," Robin said.

Marth finally realized that he had been drooling the whole time like a half-wit dunderhead and snapped his jaw shut, wiping the spittle from his chin with his sleeve.

"Chicken…" Ike moaned again.

"So," Robin said, stashing the 5-Hour Energy back into his pocket and jerking his head towards where Lucina had run off. "We should probably get Ike to the doc before I drop him." Without waiting for an answer from Marth, he started off towards the infirmary. The prince trailed after him like a lost duckling, still deep in his own personal thought chamber, mulling over how Robin could possibly be so much stronger than him.

XXX

**AN: Credit goes to my sister for the idea to have Robin drop in. Anyway, thanks for reading! The review box is always there!**


	5. Chicken Crisis Averted(?)

It had been three days since Ike had been admitted to the infirmary for brain failure. Dr. Mario had told Marth, Lucina and Robin to go away and leave him alone until he said otherwise. Marth had been extremely relieved and had spent his Ike-free time doing normal stuff and relaxing. No one was punched through a wall and nothing was destroyed. Link was happy to have his hearing back in proper order.

But now Dr. Mario had called Marth back, and so the prince had shut off his 3DS and made his way down to the infirmary, bracing for the worst. When he stepped through the door, Ike was nowhere to be seen.

"Ah, hello, Marth." Dr. Mario put away his phone (which he had been playing Candy Crush on) and rose up out of the chair he sat on.

"Where's Ike?" Marth asked.

Dr. Mario pursed his lips unhappily. "Well, about that..." he said.

"What about it?"

"...Just follow me." The doctor led Marth into his office, where he produced a key from his pocket an unlocked a door that was labeled "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. DO NOT ENTER." Past that door was a small room with another door. This one was made of metal and looked like something from a high-security vault. To the right of the door was a pin pad. Dr. Mario rapped his knuckles against the door.

An animalistic scream could be heard from inside. "CHICKEN!" Marth, horrified, recognized the voice as Ike.

Dr. Mario scratched the back of his head. He said, "You see, I've kept Ike on IV drips in the three days it took me to get his brain working again. But, since he's been only on drips, he hasn't had any chicken lately..."

"Oh, son of a bunny..." Marth muttered, putting a hand to his forehead.

The doctor nodded solemnly. "Yes, Ike is suffering from chicken-withdrawal. I've locked him in the double-reinforced quarantine room for now, but he can't stay there forever."

"So he can't get out?"

Dr. Mario nodded. "Even Little Mac couldn't, and he was even buffer than Ike. But then again, Little Mac never had any real incentive like Ike has chicken—"

"CHICKEN?!" Ike howled from inside. The entire mansion shuddered as Ike pounded on a wall. "DID SOMEONE SAY CHICKEN!?"

Dr. Mario flinched. "I'd say it's probably safe, but I can't make any guarantees."

Nervous perspiration was already beading up on Marth's forehead. Of course, the gods would never be so merciful as to let Marth deal with chicken-deprived Ike only once. He remembered the one time Ike hadn't been able to get any chicken back in the Brawl tournament... even now, if you asked any of the bird-ish smashers about it, they'd just say "Never again..." and then end the conversation immediately. Now that Ike had next to no sense or reasoning capability, it would be even worse. Marth shivered; did the room feel ten degrees colder or was it just him?

"So what are we gonna do?" he asked.

The doctor hesitated before saying, "I have an idea of what to do, but it's only just an idea at best..."

Marth gulped. "And at worst?"

"Well, let's just say that it won't be pleasant."

XXX

Marth was in the items storage, searching for what Dr. Mario had told him to get. There were boxes full of every item imaginable: rayguns, mushrooms, team healers. The explosives were kept in a separate room, but for the fourth tournament, one more specialized room had been added.

The new room was labeled "Cuccos."

Marth took a deep breath and entered the cucco room. It was plain and unfurnished, and there was nothing in the room except for a thick carpet of chickens littering the floor. Master Hand had just decided to stuff them all in their own room since they were almost unkillable and had no feelings or the regular necessities of life (food, water). It didn't count as animal abuse, either, because cuccos weren't truly "animals." When they had first been introduced as an item, Marth had asked Link what they were, and he had hand signaled with "Demon spawn." Later, Toon Link had confirmed this. Marth had asked Ganondorf too, and even the King of Evil knew to keep a safe distance from cuccos.

One cucco regarded Marth with leisurely interest, wandering closer. The prince froze, his heart racing. He had heard many tales of their wrath if they were provoked, and in a room full of them, it could be fatal to anger even one. With utmost care, Marth picked it up and walked out of the room, easing the door shut with his foot.

Now he had to get back to the infirmary without bumping the cucco into anything. This proved to be an easy task, although to Marth seemed much harder than it was because he was practically carrying a bomb in his hands. Once he tripped and fell, but the cucco just fluttered out of his hands and landed on the ground, unperturbed. The prince allowed himself a sigh of relief when he made it to the infirmary.

Dr. Mario was waiting in his office, along with Bowser and Donkey Kong. Marth had already known they would be there. Dr. Mario had explained everything.

"Stay here," the doctor said to Marth. Then he led Bowser and DK into the "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" room. Marth could hear his knocking on the quarantine door, followed by a cry of "GIMME CHICKEN!"

After that, there was the beeping of numbers being entered into the pin pad. Loud crashes and Ike's screams for chicken could be heard before Dr. Mario came out. Ike burst out on all fours, restrained by an industrial-strength chain around his neck held by Bowser and DK. His eyes flashed with a crazed radiance. He reared back and beat his chest, roaring louder than King Kong, Donkey Kong's distant relative. Link went deaf again. (_Really? _he thought.)

"I smell chicken…" he said, sniffing at the air like a dog. His gaze fell on Marth—or, more specifically, the cucco in Marth's hands.

"CHICKEN!" he shrieked, lunging forward. Bowser and DK were dragged forward a bit before they managed to get Ike under control. He struggled against the chain, desperate for chicken. The cucco flapped skittishly.

Dr. Mario, who had left for a moment, reappeared with Ragnell. "Ready?" he asked Marth.

Marth nodded despite the sweat pouring down his face. Some of it dripped onto the cucco, which twitched its head in irritation.

The doctor brought Ragnell over to Ike. He inclined his head at Bowser and DK, who let go of the chain. DK immediately hid under a chair, but Bowser couldn't fit, so he retreated inside his shell. Marth screamed like a wuss and hurled the cucco at Ike. Then he took a page from DK's book and dove under a chair, squeezing his eyes shut and praying to all the gods he knew that he would get out of this alive. The cucco smacked Ike in the face, turning an angry red and summoning a swarm of its brethren. Dr. Mario shoved Ragnell at Ike and also took cover.

All Marth could hear were the squawks of the cucco swarm, Ike bellowing at them, and the heavy thwacks of Ragnell. He risked a glance and saw that the floor was littered with feathers. The scent of fried chicken lingered in the air. Eventually the clamor ceased. Marth crawled out from under the chair and saw that Ike was sitting against a wall, rubbing his stomach. There were cucco claw scratches and scorch marks from Ike's Eruption attack on the walls and floor, but there were no cuccos.

Marth asked stupidly, "Did it work?"

Dr. Mario said, "Yes. Ike cooked and ate the entire flock, which should keep him satiated for a while. But I suggest you find a reliable source of chicken soon."

Marth absently "okay"ed, making a mental note to himself: Never use a cucco against Ike in matches.

XXX

**AN: My sister and I started laughing uncontrollably when we first thought up how chicken-deprived Ike should be. Anyway, thanks for reading, and remember to drop a review! Reviews make me happy!**


	6. Mario Has Good News!

"400 combo? How is that even possible?"

"No one could be that boss…"

"This is sorcery…!"

Marth was rapidly stomping away on his DDR SuperNova 2 arcade machine, owning a song on Expert mode. (It was his secret to staying thin and fabulous.) He was pleased by the clamor of the crowd he had attracted, but he didn't pay it any attention because a) if his concentration lapsed for even a second, he would lose his combo, and b) a crowd formed every time he played DDR. He hit a few particularly tricky arrows and was just about to complete the song with a perfect combo when the screen went blank.

"What!" Marth shouted, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.

"Did it break?" Little Mac asked.

"The juice stopped," Mega Man said from where he was sitting, plugged into a wall.

"BEEP!" Mr. Game & Watch beeped, but no one could understand him.

Mega Man unplugged his cord and retracted it back into his arm, making his hand pop out instead. "The power suddenly went out. I dunno why."

"Where did Ike go?" Rosalina asked. Her Luma stole Toon Link's hat and zipped out the open window.

"HEY!" Toon Link complained, jumping out after the Luma. This proved to be a very stupid idea, because the Luma could fly and he couldn't.

_Ike is in the basement next to the circuit breaker,_ Lucario said telepathically. _He also has several gooey bombs with him._

It took a few minutes for Marth to get the image of blasting Ike into space out of his head. When his blind rage finally faded, he forced his way through the crowd and descended down a few floors to reach the basement. Just as Lucario had said, Ike was there, trying to shove a gooey bomb into the broken and charred circuit breaker. There were black explosion marks around him, but he was somehow unharmed and spotless (just like in chapter two).

"IKE! What did you do this time?" Marth yelled.

"Hi Marth! Can you help me here? This toaster isn't working. It won't cook the eggs," Ike said, pointing at the circuit breaker and then the gooey bombs.

Marth facepalmed so hard that if he'd had Ike's strength, he would have knocked his own head off. "Ike, those aren't eggs."

"Are they pancakes?"

"No. They're bombs."

"Bombs… can I eat them?"

"No, and if you try to cook them they'll take away all your chicken."

Ike gasped at this. "My chicken!" He dropped a gooey bomb and ran up the stairs, out of the basement.

Marth huffed, shaking his head in wonder at how Ike could no longer tell a bomb apart from a pancake, but he understood perfectly anything related to chicken. He didn't notice one of the gooey bombs flashing until it started beeping.

"Ah sh—"

The mansion was shaken by a massive BOOM as all the gooey bombs exploded at once. Marth went deaf. (Link was safe this time because he had earplugs.)

XXX

Luckily, all it had taken was a few heart containers and Marth was as good as new. Dr. Mario had done the more delicate work of repairing his eardrums.

"Thanks, Dr. Mario!" Marth said as he left the infirmary to go to a meeting called by regular Mario in the lobby. Just before he walked out, he spied the doctor whip out his phone and open up 2048. (He had a 65536 block!)

XXX

In the lobby, Mario was standing on a chair, addressing the smashers. Even with the extra height, he was still shorter than some of the tall people like Samus and Ganondorf. Marth had missed the first part of Mario's speech, so he went over to the Villager, who was rocking in the corner, hugging his knees and whispering to himself with a maniacal smile on his face.

"What did I miss?" Marth asked.

Villager kept muttering as if he hadn't heard, staring blankly into the distance. "Ten tons of lead bricks on their heads, yes, that should be sufficient… Plenty of fresh sacrifices…"

Marth rolled his eyes and left him alone in search of a saner person. He found Captain Falcon and asked him what Mario had said while he was gone.

"Oh, you didn't FALCON MISS much. All he FALCON SAID was that he sent a FALCON LETTER to Sakurai explaining about our destroyed vehicles, and he got a FALCON REPLY! He's reading it now. Just FALCON LISTEN!" the boisterous racer explained, gesturing at the red midget plumber. Marth tuned in.

"…And this is what the letter says." Mario began reading off a paper in his hands.

_"Dear Mario,_

_You and the rest of the smashers (yes, even you, Luigi) have my sincerest apologies for Ike's design change. I had no idea that this would happen to him. I am also extremely sorry if you have been inconvenienced in any way due to your broken vehicles. The staff has created brand-new replacements for everyone, which should have arrived in the garage by the time you receive this letter. I have also included three extra buses for you to take a road trip and relax a little so that you are all rested and ready for the tournament. Don't wear yourselves down too much with training!_  
_Again, I apologize for making Ike too buff. He should be better by the time the tournament begins. Don't hesitate to write if you experience any more problems._

_Sincerely,_

_Masahiro Sakurai."_

There was much cheering and discussion among all the smashers (except for Villager, who was still spewing nonsense). Luigi said, "He remembered me!"

King Dedede blurted out, "Are we really gonna go on a road trip?"

Mario waited for everyone to quiet down before saying, "To answer your question, Dedede, yes, we are going on a road trip. The electricians will need all of us to be gone for a few days while they fix the power. I already spoke to Master Hand, and he didn't care whatever we did."

"As usual…" someone muttered.

"So," Mario continued, ignoring the interruption, "I have decided on a trip to… the beach!"

"NO!" Sonic screamed.

"YAY!" everyone else screamed. However, Captain Falcon said "Yes!"

Mario raised his voice to be heard over the ruckus. "We leave in an hour! Hurry and pack whatever you need and be back in the lobby in an hour!"

Most of the smashers scrambled upstairs to their rooms, except for the ones who didn't own much stuff anyway, like Greninja and Kirby.

Marth was about to leave when Ike burst through a wall, scattering debris everywhere.

"My chicken stash is gone!" he cried.

"Ike, you never had a chicken stash," Marth reminded him.

"…Oh yeah."

XXX

**AN: Toon Link can talk because he has one line in Wind Waker that isn't a shout. (He meows.) Also, I am not Masahiro Sakurai! Don't sue me! I mean, this is ****_fan_****fiction for a reason, right?**

**Anyway, be sure to leave a review! :D**


	7. A Much Needed Vacation (Ruined By Ike)

"Ike, you haven't even packed anything!"

Ike stared at his empty suitcase before replying, "We were supposed to pack?"

Marth would have facepalmed, but he was hauling his own suitcase down the stairs. "Uh, _yeah!_ Unless you want to go wandering around in the same filthy clothes for the next few days. Oh wait, never mind. You do that anyway."

"Am I supposed to bring stuff?"

"Well, whatever you want to bring for the beach. You know, like, sunblock, a beach towel…"

"Wait, we're going to the beach? I thought we were going to KFC. I want chicken."

Marth threw his hands up in exasperation, letting his suitcase tumble down the rest of the stairs. There were no valuables in there anyway.

XXX

The smashers were splitting up onto the three buses, but most of them were crammed onto two buses because Ike was on the third one. The only ones who were on the "Ike bus" were either Marth, the ones who didn't care, or the ones who were kicked out of the other two buses. In the end, the people who were on the Ike bus were Marth, Ike (of course), Sheik, Olimar, Little Mac, Bowser, Lucario, Charizard, and the Villager.

The instant the Villager got on the bus, he knelt in the back corner in some kind of prayer pose. "Please, great lord, may these three buses crash and burn, may all the passengers die a horrific death… Yes, even if I must give my own life, it is a worthy cause…" The whole time, he still kept a grotesque smile on his face. Everyone kept a safe distance from him.

Marth sat next to Ike in the front of the bus. Bowser was right behind them, ready to intervene in case Ike did anything weird (or weirder than usual). Little Mac was across from them, sweating nervously and glancing at Ike every five seconds. Sheik was polishing her (his? Marth still wasn't sure) needles while humming a jolly tune. Lucario was already asleep—or at least pretending to be—and Charizard was eating Olimar's Pikmin while the diminutive alien plucked new ones out of the bus. Marth had never understood how he could pluck Pikmin out of ridiculous surfaces like metal, or a Bulborb, or even the clouds in the Skyworld stage.

The bus started up. It was being driven by a Working Alloy. They were like the Fighting Alloys except that they had been created to do work. They usually did all the housework around the mansion, except for repairs (they were too stupid to do those). While the Fighting Alloys came in the forms of Mario, Zelda, Kirby, and Captain Falcon, the Working Alloys resembled Fox, Link, Samus with her suit, and Luigi.

All three buses started driving away. "Yes, the bus is moving," Villager said. "May it explode and bring much death, yes, that would be excellent indeed…" Everyone ignored him, but they secretly hoped that they would all make it to the beach in one piece.

XXX

Thirty minutes later, Ike fell asleep against the side of the bus, snoring like a dragon. No, even Charizard and Bowser didn't snore that loudly. Marth noticed Little Mac visibly relax as soon as Ike started snoring.

"Why are you so paranoid?" Marth asked the super buff boxer.

Little Mac mopped some sweat off his forehead and said, "Well, let's just say I had a firsthand experience with Sudden Buffness Brainpower Loss many years ago. I punched a lot of people through walls myself."

"Ah," Marth said, remembering how Dr. Mario had muttered about using his foolproof diagnosis method on the boxer before.

Little Mac continued. "I remember accidentally crushing someone's hand when he tried to do a handshake with me. Then he got mad at me, so I got mad at him, and then I punched him so hard he flew into space…"

The prince didn't speak for a bit. Ike could potentially punch people into space? Yikes. "So you mean you remember everything you did?"

"Most of it… my coach always makes jokes about stuff I did."

"Huh." Marth gave a devious grin as he thought about all the future prank material Ike was handing to him on a silver platter.

XXX

Three hours later, the Ike bus stopped at a KFC (Wario hadn't blown this one up yet) because Ike had started moaning about chicken in his sleep. The Villager also had to get a drink of water because his throat had become hoarse from nonstop muttering. Marth got ten buckets of chicken.

As soon as Marth stepped onto the bus with chicken in hands, Ike began twitching rapidly and jolted awake with a shout of "CHICKEN!"

"Here you go," Marth said, dumping all of the chicken on to Ike's lap. The buff mercenary devoured it instantly, boxes and all.

XXX

Thankfully, everyone made it to the beach alive and safe. With Ike satiated, Marth wouldn't have to worry about him (as much).  
Everyone burst out from the buses, even Villager, although he was still smiling like a serial killer and muttering to himself. Ike created a small sand crater with every step he took. Marth watched carefully just in case Ike started running after the seagulls, but he didn't! Amazing!

The regular beach-goers stared in shock as they witnessed the motley crew of smashers stampede down the beach towards the water. They hastily packed up and left, fearful for their lives.

"Cool!" Bowser said. "More space!"

With all the foolish normal people gone, the beach was empty… except for one red-haired person, who was standing a little ways off with a stunned expression on his face. This person did not go unnoticed by Marth, who was equally astonished.

"Roy?!"

"Marth?!"

The two ran towards each other like they were in a movie and were about to engage in a very manly bro-hug until Ike burst in.

"Who're you?" he asked Roy.

"Oh, hi Ike! Long time no see!" Roy said.

"See who? I don't know you!" Ike asserted.

Marth decided to intervene before things got too awkward. "Ike, this is my friend Roy." The prince leaned over and whispered to Roy, "Ike has SBBL. Don't ask."

"Ah," Roy said sagely, nodding as if this made all the sense in the world.

Ike scrutinized Roy with narrowed eyes for a moment before breaking out into a huge grin and bellowing, "A friend of Marth's is a friend of Ike's!" He patted Roy on the shoulder a little too enthusiastically.

Roy screamed as he sunk down in the sand up to his neck. "Cool!" Ike said, patting Marth on the shoulder too. The prince also was buried in the sand. Ike ran off happily.

"Sooooo…" Roy began. "How's it been?"

"Pretty good…" Marth replied. "But there's just one thing."

"What's that?"

"How are we supposed to get out of here?"

XXX

"What a perfect sand castle!" Luigi said as he applied the finishing touches to his perfect sand replica of Peach's castle. "I can't wait to show this to Peach! She'll be sure to love it!" The plumber ran off to find the fruity princess.

While Luigi was fetching Peach, Ike approached the castle.

"Ooh! This looks like Castle Siege!" he exclaimed, even though the sand castle and Castle Siege looked nothing alike. "I wanna play in it!"

Ike stomped through the castle, completely decimating it and reducing it to a pile of shapeless wet sand.

Luigi returned with Peach a few moments later only to find that his creation had been utterly wrecked. "Mama mia!" he cried. "My castle!"

"Oh, Luigi, this is very…nice," Peach lied. "Well, I'm going to go find Mario." The princess left Luigi to mourn over his ruined castle.

"Who could have done this? I'll feed them to the Koopas!" Luigi raged. He spied Ike prancing through the sand with pieces of seashell stuck to his foot…the same pieces of seashell Luigi had used to adorn his castle roof.

Luigi angrily ran at Ike and leapt towards him in a tackle, but he was too weak and harmlessly bounced off, crashing into a volleyball net and interrupting the players' game.

"Mama mia! Help me!" Luigi squealed, disentangling himself from the net and fleeing with a horde of angry volleyball players at his heels.

XXX

Sonic clung on to Captain Falcon's leg like it was a life raft as the racer stood in ankle-deep water. He had dragged Sonic here as revenge for all the times the hedgehog had made fun of him for being too slow.

"Get me out of the water! I'm gonna die!" the hedgehog wailed.

"Man up, it's only a little FALCON WATER!" Captain Falcon said.

"You can drown in water!"

"It's not even FALCON DEEP enough for that!"

"What if a wave hits me? I might drown!"

Captain Falcon rolled his eyes. "Yeah right, like a giant FALCON WAVE is gonna come up right this instant. This water isn't even deep enough to get your FALCON KNEES wet!"

"But what if a wave does come?" Sonic cried. "I could die! I'm too young to die!"

The racer was thinking of a witty retort when his attention was diverted by a loud shout.

"Woohoo!" Ike hollered, jumping up and cannonballing into the water. He created a massive tidal wave that loomed over Captain Falcon and Sonic like Knuckles after his Sonic Boom redesign.

Sonic was momentarily paralyzed by fear before he panicked and screamed, "HELP!"

Captain Falcon seized the hydrophobic hedgehog and flung him onto dry sand. Sonic sped away before he could die from being touched by water. Captain Falcon faced the oncoming wave with arms outspread.

"Come at me bro!" he whooped.

XXX

Lucina was stuck in the sand, buried up to her neck. Ike had "patted" her on the shoulder and ran off. Robin was also buried next to her.

"Ugh..." Lucina grumbled. "How do I get out of here?"

"Simple!" Robin said. He effortlessly popped out of the sand, landing nimbly on his feet. "Ta-da! With my 5-Hour Energy, I can do anything!"

"What! Now help me get out!"

"Uhh... I'm not sure if even _I_ have enough energy to lift _you_ out..." Robin said, although he was trying to stifle his laughter.

Lucina wrinkled her brow. "Did you just call me fat?!"

"Uhh..." Robin made a quick getaway, leaving Lucina still stuck.

"HEY! COME BACK HERE! SOMEONE HELP ME!" Lucina yelled.

XXX

The Villager was poking around in the sand, digging up mole crabs.

"If I could unleash these on them, imagine how much chaos there would be, ha, ha…" he whispered to himself, stowing about 666 mole crabs in his pockets. He spied Ike kicking in the sand and crept over. With all the stealth and precision of a trained assassin, the Villager dropped a handful of mole crabs in Ike's hair.

They started scuttling around. "Wh-wha?" Ike stammered. "Get 'em off! Get 'em off!"

The Villager's eyes flashed with deranged satisfaction as he watched Ike run amok, scratching at his head. The mercenary plowed through several sand structures, screaming and scrambling in circles. "Hey, my functional sand rifle!" Toon Link complained.

"Where else could I use these?" the Villager mused as he went to pluck more mole crabs out of their peaceful homes.

XXX

The sun was low in the sky when Marth and Roy finally managed to escape from the sand with the help of a passing Donkey Kong.

"My manicure!" Marth cried as he fussed over his tarnished, sand-filled fingernails.

"Honestly, Marth! No wonder people still think you're a girl," Roy scoffed.

"Shut up! Anyway, we need to go find Ike before he causes any more havoc." Marth brushed the sand off himself as best as he could.

"Yeah, but look. Everyone's gathering back at the buses. It must be time for you guys to leave," Roy pointed out. Was that a hint of bitterness Marth detected in his tone?

"Huh. Well, someone else probably got Ike anyway. Hey, wanna ask Mario if you can come back for a while?" the prince suggested, knowing how much his friend missed being in the Smash tournaments.

"Really? YES!" Roy cheered, punching the air. He skipped away, dragging Marth by the arm. "Let's go!"

XXX

Mario had easily and happily agreed to let Roy come back. The plumber had gathered all of the smashers by the three buses and was calling role.

"Yoshi?"

Yoshi flutter-jumped into the air and shot out his tongue in response.

"Check… Luigi?"

"I'm here," a very battered and bruised Luigi called weakly.

"Check… Ike?" Mario said.

When no one answered, all the smashers looked around simultaneously before coming to the same grim conclusion.

Ike was nowhere to be seen.

XXX

**AN: Oh, Ike is going to get into so much trouble... Anyway, thanks for reading! Leave a review! I like reviews...**


	8. Ike Runs Rampant Without Any Supervision

The sun had started going down when Ike finally got all of those nasty little bug-things out of his hair. He was going to get _so_ much revenge on the meanie who had put them there! Well, after he got some food. Ike was seriously craving chicken right now… He followed those skinny gray chickens that he had seen wandering around the beach, but they always flew up into the air before he could catch them. Looking around, Ike saw that he had strayed away from the beach and into the midst of some buildings. He couldn't see the other smashers anywhere, but there was a skinny gray chicken soaring lazily above his head.

With a shrug, he continued chasing the gray chicken. Maybe it would lead him to more chickens!

Ike ran down the street, his face tilted up to watch the chicken. He didn't notice something speeding down the street straight towards him. There was a loud honk and the sound of wheels screeching and then he was hit by a large metal object.

After the initial shock, Ike was perfectly fine, but the same could not be said for the car that had hit him. Its hood had been flattened in and there was an Ike-shaped depression in the crushed metal. Ike kicked the car in annoyance. It flew into a building, crashing through a wall and sending dust and wall pieces flying.

"Oops," Ike said, taking a different path to get away from the smoking wreck. Whew, it stank big time! Ike waved his hand in front of his nose and scowled. That stupid car! Now he had lost the skinny chicken! His stomach rumbled, crying for sustenance. Maybe he could find a KFC somewhere...

He roamed through the streets, searching for any signs of chicken. There were lots of stores, but no chicken stores! The closest he got was finding a store full of animals like bunnies, lizards, and even birds… but those birds were too small to be chickens. Dejected, he left the store through a hole in the wall (that he had created). Alarms started blaring, but Ike paid them no attention. They weren't chicken, so he didn't care.

He continued exploring the city, not bothering to follow paths, and walking through any obstacles he encountered, leaving holes in them. The sun was sinking below the horizon, and there weren't many streetlights. How was Ike going to find chicken in this low light? He sniffed the air hopefully, but recoiled in disgust. All the yucky city smells were interfering with his chicken-sensors! He neared a big, flashy building with some kind of names on it, but they seemed to be some sort of code. _Batman_… that didn't make any sense! There was another name, but it wasn't about chicken and it was too long for Ike to bother reading. Something about an ape planet…? Ike smelled food, but it was corny and buttery and not at all chicken.

Ike stomped the pavement in frustration, causing cracks to spiderweb out from where his foot landed. This place was useless! What was the point of having a place if there was no chicken? Nevertheless, he continued his chicken hunt. Maybe it was all somewhere else, and he needed to find it… like in a treasure hunt! Treasure hunts were fun.

Ike was rejuvenated by this thought, but he didn't get to enjoy it for long because some sirens began wailing really loudly. Several black-and-white cars appeared, surrounding Ike. They had flashing red-and-blue lights on top. Awesome! Marth's car was nowhere near as cool as these!

Some weird men in navy-blue uniforms came out of the cars. "Put your hands in the air!" one of them said. "We have you surrounded."

"I don't know you!" Ike declared. How dare these people tell him what to do? They couldn't control him!

"You are under arrest for the unauthorized destruction of several buildings and a few cars. I repeat, put your hands up in the air."

Ike scowled. Who were these people, to come barging in like this and demanding he do things? "You can't tell me what to do! You ain't no friend of Marth, so you ain't no friend of mine! Now gimme chicken."

"I repeat, you are under arrest. If you do not comply, we will have to use force to take you to jail."

Jail? What was that? Ike knew he had heard the word before somewhere, but he had forgotten what it meant. So he decided to ask, "Does jail have chicken?"

The police officer, seeing that this was the only way to make the unruly ruffian agree with anything, lied, "Yes, jail has plenty of chicken. Now put your hands in front of you, facing up."

Ike did what the weird man said. If it would get him chicken, then ok!

The police officer put two metal bracelets around Ike's wrists. Wait a minute… Ike had seen these before! He just couldn't remember where.  
The officer escorted Ike into the back of one of the fancy cars. He left the super buff mercenary there and got into the front, driving off. The other cars followed.

"You have the right to remain silent," the officer said.

Ike didn't understand what this meant, but he stayed silent anyway because he was preoccupied with trying to think. Those metal bracelets sure were uncomfortable… Suddenly, a sensible thought managed to force its way to the front of Ike's brain, squeezing past all of the chicken-thoughts. Ike knew what these bracelets were… they were handcuffs!

Ike blurted out, "How am I supposed to eat the chicken with handcuffs? You ain't giving me no chicken! YOU'RE A LIAR!" Ike effortlessly broke through the handcuffs and ripped them off his wrists. If there was one thing Ike hated more than turkey, it was liars. He tore through the metal partition separating himself and the police officer, punching the filthy liar in the face.

The officer flew out of his seat, hurtling through the side of the car and flying away. Ike kicked off one of the back side doors and leapt out of the car. It swerved off course and crashed into a car insurance building. How tragic.

The rest of the police cars made a u-turn and ganged up on Ike. He ran headfirst at them and crashed into one of the cars, but the unlucky police car suffered the same fate as the car that had driven into Ike earlier. The officer inside that car screamed, slammed the car door open, and fled.

"BEGONE, FILTHY LIARS!" Ike bellowed at them. The other police officers exchanged some nervous glances before turning tail and fleeing.

Ike snorted scornfully before continuing his search for chicken. He was starting to get really hungry…

XXX

**AN: Hurricane Ike lives again... the world will never be safe!**

**AFeralFurry: Well, there's one part in Fire Emblem where Soren says something about Ike really liking chicken... and it seems to be just generally accepted among the fanbase. :/**

**Thanks for reading! Leave a review!**


	9. The Smashers Are Really Bad At Tracking

"Where could Ike have gone?" Marth muttered to himself. If he had a nickel for every time he'd wished Ike was smart again, he would be drowning in a pile of money.

"He probably went to find chicken," Roy offered.

"But he ate chicken just a few hours ago!" Ike didn't eat _that_ much chicken… or did he?

Roy shrugged. "You never know."

Marth sighed wearily. Mario had had them split up into groups to search for Ike, telling them to call or text each other if they found him. Marth's phone was on full volume, but so far the others hadn't contacted him. Ike could have gotten miles away since they had last seen him, and he had probably destroyed tons of stuff in the process… Marth wished Ike was smart again, and another imaginary nickel went in the money pile.

"Hey, look at that." Pit, one of Marth's group members, pointed at an extremely mangled car embedded in a building. There were chunks of metal and building scattered everywhere. Dust and smoke rose from the mess. How had Marth not noticed that?

"Yech, it stinks worse than Wario!" Fox grumbled, wrinkling his keen nose. "And that's saying something."

Holding his shirt over his nose to block out the stench, Marth went closer to observe. There was an impression in the front of the car that was shaped suspiciously like a very buff man… This reeked of Ike (not literally).

"Ike was definitely here," Marth said, stating the obvious.

"Thanks for stating the obvious," Roy said, rolling his eyes. "Of course Ike was here! The problem is, where did he go?"

"Maybe there?" Pit indicated a broken, sorry excuse for a bench that looked very much like it had been run through by a buff mercenary. "Jeez, it's like you guys are blind."

Roy, as usual, had an extremely snappy comeback. "Nu uh!"

"Why didn't he just go around the bench?" Marth wondered.

XXX

The trail of destruction led them to a pet shop. This particular pet shop had a bunch of police cars crowding around an Ike-shaped hole in its wall.

"I bet it doesn't sell chickens," Palutena said to Pit.

The angel nodded, snickering. Then he fell silent, and his amused expression morphed into one of thoughtfulness as he said, "Lady Palutena, why haven't you just used your All-Seeing Eye of Palutena to find Ike?"

"Ummm…" Palutena rushed to think up a plausible excuse, but she gave up and simply waved her staff, making Pit collapse to the floor, asleep.

"Do you just enjoy torturing him?" Marth asked the goddess.

She gave a mischievous grin and replied, "Maybe."

"Probably."

"Maybe. Now stop questioning the almighty goddess or she might smite you for your insolence."

Marth wasn't sure if she was joking or not. "…But you wouldn't abuse your power, right?"

Palutena put on a brilliant smile. "Of course I would! That's part of the goddess job description." Again, Marth was unsure if she was joking. Pit had to deal with this 24/7? Marth felt sorry for him.

Changing the subject, he said, "Do you really have an All-Seeing Eye of Palutena?"

The goddess's smile only widened. "No. That's just something I made up to mess with Pit."

Man, how did Pit even survive with this? Marth felt _really_ sorry for him.

"Ah, don't feel sorry. He's used to it. Oh yeah, did I mention that I can see what's inside your heart?" Palutena laughed.

The prince took one gigundo step away from her and made a mental note to himself: this goddess was a crazy psychopath! Avoid her at all costs. Changing the subject again, he said, "We should probably be looking for Ike."

Palutena nodded and raised her staff, vanishing the still-sleeping Pit away.

Marth decided not to dwell on the weirdness of this and continued following Ike's trail of demolition. Was it just him, or did Ike make a conscious effort to try to destroy as many things as possible? After a moment of consideration, Marth shrugged to himself. Nah, Ike was probably too dumb to keep a non-chicken thought like that on his mind for more than five seconds. But then again, Ike was also too dumb to think that some certain people might be looking for him since he had disappeared without any warning. Marth wished Ike was smart again, and another imaginary nickel went in the money pile.

XXX

"Look, there's another car in a building," Fox said, pointing at a police car that had crashed into a building that offered car insurance.

"How ironic," Roy observed.

Fox flicked his ears at another mangled police car and continued, "And there's a car that ran into Ike."

"And here's another wall that Ike ran through," Marth said from where he was standing next to a wall with a hole in it.

"BEEP!" Mr. Game & Watch beeped.

"Oh, put a sock in it," Fox said.

"BEEP!" Mr. Game & Watch beeped again, but it sounded more insistent this time. The 2D man was jumping up and down, holding something in his hand. How did a 2D person hold a 3D object anyway?

Marth took the object from the 2D man and identified it as a magazine. One quick glance at the cover revealed that the magazine had some extremely important information…

About an upcoming game that was being released soon. It wasn't Nintendo, so Marth instinctively didn't care.

"Mr. Game & Watch, why did you even get this? It doesn't have anything important… wait, _new mega evolutions?_ Awesome!" Marth eagerly flipped open the magazine.

"BEEP!" Mr. Game & Watch beeped in a satisfied tone.

Fox walked over. "What is this? You're getting sidetracked." He snatched the magazine from Marth to see what he had been reading. Fox's face instantly changed from one of disapproval to one of an excited fanboy.

"No way! Mega Salamence? Sweet! But it does look kind of ugly… Hey!" Fox yelped as the magazine was stolen by Palutena.

"The new Pokemon are terrible," the goddess declared as she incinerated the magazine. "Now get back to business!"

"Fire Emblem is way better!" Roy chipped in.

Marth and Fox grumbled unhappily and continued following Ike's extremely obvious trail.

XXX

The Villager was roaming through the city by himself. He had deliberately separated from his group, and since everyone thought he was insane, no one even bothered about him! It was hilarious, or at least the Villager thought so. Besides, he didn't need the other smashers anyway. They were terrible trackers, even the aura-user. The Villager operated alone.

Without the burden of those stupid, slow smashers, the Villager could quickly navigate the city, even at night. The night was beautiful, enchanting, the silence blissful. He liked the background music too.

While the others had to rely on the mercenary's trail, the Villager relied on his own intuition. He let his instincts lead him. Mazes were nothing to him; they were just roads with a few extra pathways. He was never led astray anyway. He was above the simplistic thinking styles of the other smashers. They were idiots, all of them.

The Villager made his way through the dark streets. Once a cat crossed his path and gave him a malicious glare, so he returned the favor. The cat bristled in fear and fled. The Villager almost laughed… these beasts were so foolish, nothing like the ones back home. Then again, they were fools, too. Just NPCs… husks programmed to repeat words not of their own, but put into their mouths. The Villager knew of the outside world… he knew of the "player," of the "author," of the "reader" reading this fanfiction right now, but none of that mattered to him. He lived to destroy… to destroy was to create, to create was to destroy. And when everything lay ruined beneath his feet, then he would rebuild his own world, bright and shining, and he would be at the top of it…

First, he had to find the mercenary.

It was almost too easy. The Villager turned another corner and heard jubilant cries of "CHICKEN!" He followed the sounds and soon beheld the sight of the mercenary prancing through the rubble of what used to be a KFC. The buff fool held several empty buckets of chicken, and more lay at his feet.

"Hi weirdo!" the mercenary greeted, spying the Villager.

"Hello, Ike," the Villager said.

"You know my name? Who're you?" the mercenary asked like the moron he was. SBBL was a beautiful thing, reducing once-competent minds to this… rubbish.

"I am the Villager."

"Cool!" the fool said. "Hey, got any chicken?"

The Villager had planned on this. The smashers were so predictable… "Yes, I do have chicken. Plenty of chicken." It wasn't a lie; he had stocked up on chicken ever since he had found out about the mercenary's SBBL. "You can have it all if you do whatever I say."

And just as he had planned, the stupid mercenary agreed. "Sure!"

"Good. Now follow me," the Villager said, waving the mercenary along. He obediently followed the Villager, picking scraps of chicken breading out of the bottom of a bucket.

The Villager smiled and murmured to himself, "An excellent weapon to add to my arsenal of world domination… yes, since I have chicken, I can make him do anything I want…"

XXX

**AN: Fun fact: I've never played a Fire Emblem game. Google is a wondrous place, my friends.**

**So, what's the Villager gonna do? Can't be anything good. I guess we'll find out next chapter, huh? ;)  
**

**Leave a review! I like seeing what you guys think. Yes, if I can see what they are thinking, I can control them from within…**

**Thanks for reading!**


	10. The Villager is Sacked

The smashers had returned to their hotel after an unsuccessful night of trying to find Ike. They had gone to their assigned suites and collapsed onto the beds. Nobody had noticed the Villager's absence.

The next morning, Marth woke to find Roy already on the couch, watching TV. Marth rolled out of bed in his pajamas, blearily rubbing his eyes.

"Ooh, a flambé! I love fire…" Roy said, watching the dancing flames onscreen. He hadn't bothered to change yet, and his hair was a disheveled red mess.

"What's this?" Marth asked.

_"Chopped."_

The prince groaned. That was Roy's favorite show, and once he started watching, he was inseparable from the TV.

"Don't watch TV. We have to find Ike!" Marth reminded his friend.

Roy looked up at him beseechingly. "Please? It's almost the end of the dessert round."

"No. Why would they be doing a flambé in the dessert round anyway?"

"For the cherries jubilee. But come on, we're never gonna find Ike!" Then Roy added, "Besides, if he's gone, I can get back in Smash Bros.!"

Marth frowned. "You know that's not the right way to think."

Roy turned back to the TV and muttered, "At least let me finish this episode. Time's halfway up. I wanna see who wins."

"Fine. I'm gonna brush my teeth and get dressed," Marth said, and left. It was a commercial break, and he had no patience for the stupid commercials.

XXX

When Marth got back, judging had ended and the winner was about to be revealed.

"Who's gonna win, who's gonna win?" Roy chanted. "I bet it's the blondie. She did good…"

"Well," Marth automatically corrected.

The commentator said, "The _Chopped_ champion is…"

And then the screen changed, showing the words _BREAKING NEWS!_

"NOOOO!" Roy screamed.

The TV now showed a news reporter standing in front of a wrecked KFC. Headlines read, "Unknown Force Rampages Through City."

The reporter reported, "Yesterday night, the city of Butteston was ravaged by a mysterious force. Many buildings were destroyed and several cars were lodged inside walls. There is no evidence yet to be collected on how this could have happened without a natural disaster. One suspect has been found so far. The only things we know are that he has blue hair and he is extremely dangerous. Do not approach him if you see him. Here is a video of the suspect."

"Blue hair?! It has to be Ike!" Marth said.

The screen showed a very grainy video of a certain blue-haired buff man running through a building and destroying it, although the video was poor-quality enough so that, to any other observer, it looked like the man might have used something to destroy the building. Marth and Roy knew better.

"Holy Naga, that's Ike!" the prince exclaimed.

"But why's he rampaging through the city like that? There was a KFC in the background, so he must have gotten chicken… right?" Roy asked hopefully.

"Who knows? But he's still running around out there. Oh my goddess, we gotta find him!"

"…Yeah. I'll get dressed." Roy went to find his suitcase.

"Hurry up! I'm gonna wake everyone else," Marth said, and dashed out of the room.

"…Numerous witnesses have also reported seeing a small, brown-haired child rocking in a fetal position nearby every time the man struck. One bystander claims he heard the child saying something about world domination," the reporter continued.

XXX

"Wait, Marth!" Roy said just as he and his friend were about to leave the hotel.

"What?"

"You have blue hair!"

"…No duh. You just noticed?"

"Well, you can't go out with your hair like that! People might think you're the blue-haired man the news was talking about."

"…Aw, crudnuggets!" Marth said, running a hand through his immaculate hair. "You're right."

Roy frowned. "Marth, how come your curses are so terrible?"

"Well, I can't say the real ones or else the rating will have to be bumped up to T."

"Oh yeah. The Prophet wants to keep this K+."

"Right, now get away from the fourth wall. I can see cracks appearing."

Roy remembered when he had first learned about the fourth wall. That had been a shocking discovery… He glanced nervously at the breaking wall of text. He could almost see the reader behind it. Man, was it ugly… "Anyway, doesn't Zelda have some hair dye that she used to use to turn into Sheik? We can use it on you."

"What?!" Marth yelled in outrage. "No way am I letting anyone mess up the royal hair!"

Roy rolled his eyes. He had forgotten about "Princess Martha." "And I don't suppose you'll want to wear a wig, either?"

"Heck no!"

The redhead gave an exasperated groan. "Fiiiine, let's just wing it and see what happens. But don't blame me when all the people start getting suspicious about you!"

"They wouldn't dare lay a hand on the nobility of Altea!" Marth roared indignantly, puffing his chest out and straightening his girly tiara. "I'm the Hero-King himself!"

"Alright, calm your birdies, prince," Roy said. "But when the cops come to get you, remember that I said 'I told you so.'"

XXX

"Argh!" Marth growled in frustration as he was carried away in the back of a police car. The police had asked him to come back to the police station for investigation. He wasn't in any real trouble for now, but he had to remain at the station until proven innocent. He couldn't even play games on his phone because they had confiscated it. When he played his Hero-King card, the officers had just peered at him weirdly and whispered to each other about a mental asylum. It looked like he might have to sit out this one. It was maddening.

Worst of all, Roy's voice rang annoyingly in his head. _I told you so._

XXX

"I knew it," Roy remarked as he watched his friend being carried away in the back of a police car. He had tried calling Marth, but he knew there would be no answer on the other end. Marth was on his own now. Too bad he hadn't listened.

"Pika pika!" Pikachu squeaked from Roy's shoulder. Of course, the Pokemon was friendly with him; he'd known it as a Pichu in Melee.

"Yeah, Marth can be a prissy princess sometimes," Roy said.

"Pi, pikachu!" the electric mouse insisted, pointing a chubby paw at something.

Roy followed Pikachu's line of sight and saw an oversized head of smooth brown hair disappear behind a corner.

"Who's that?"

"Pika pi! Pi-ka!" Pikachu explained, waving with its arms.

"A noobie, huh? His name's the Villager? He's a psychotic freak weirdo? _He's got Ike?!_ Holy crab!"

Roy ran around the corner to the sight of Ike mercilessly plowing through another building. The Villager watched from the shadows with deranged satisfaction in his creepy little eyes.

"Ike, what are you doing?!" Roy burst out.

The mercenary looked up with dull, glazed eyes and droned, "These actions of mine are to be a great and honorable service to the chicken overlords. They shall reward me with much chicken. All hail the chicken overlords." The Villager smiled smugly.

"Ike, stop! You won't get any chicken if you keep doing this!" Roy cried.

Ike only shook his head as if he seemed disappointed. "This one does not understand the will of the chicken overlords… Truly a tragedy."

In the background, the Villager started slinking away. Ike immediately began lumbering after him.

"Come back here!" Roy yelled, giving chase. Pikachu leapt off his shoulder and ran by his feet, cheeks sparking with electricity.

Roy had never been the fastest runner, but he quickly caught up to the Villager, who was a slow runner because his legs were short and stubbly. Then again, Roy had never seen Toon Link run…

"Fiend!" Roy shouted, throwing a punch at the Villager with all his might. He didn't have the Sword of Seals with him, but he wasn't going to let that stop him.

The Villager easily dodged, eyes gleaming with malice. He was about to deliver a vicious uppercut to Roy's stomach when Pikachu intervened, bashing into the Villager. He tumbled away. Roy planted a foot on his chest before he could try to escape.

"No…" the Villager seethed. "Foolish boy!"

"You are staying here until the others come!" Roy said, whipping out his phone to text Mario. "Tell me what you did to Ike!"

The Villager laughed mirthlessly. "Easy… a few chicken promises and he obeyed completely. Yes, if only everyone were as stupid as he is…"

"You're the stupid one here!"

"Ha, if only you knew…" the Villager whispered. "Silly Roy…"

Roy bristled. "How do you know my name?"

The Villager smiled dreamily. "I know everything."

"What about the full roster of the next tournament? Am I on?"

"Simple," the Villager said, and was about to spill when Mario and company arrived on the scene.

"Roy! And Villager! And Ike! And Pikachu!" Mario exclaimed. "We are going back to the mansion immediately! I don't care if we have no electricity! Ike has proven that he cannot be trusted in the outside world! And plus, I have to think up a punishment for Villager."

"The chicken overlords will gift me immensely," Ike deadpanned. Roy had forgotten about him, but he was broken out of his trance with one quick statement: "The Villager has no chicken for you." Before the Villager could say anything else, he was gagged and thrown into a sack.

"What!" the mercenary boomed, lunging at the sack. "He's a LIAR!"

"Ike, no chicken if you attack him," Roy quickly said.

"…Hmph. Liars are bad. Chicken is good." And that was the end of that.

All the smashers headed back to their hotel to gather their stuff while Mario went to the police station to bail out Marth. Once everyone had gotten their things, they piled on to the buses (most still avoiding the Ike bus) and departed for the mansion. The sack containing the Villager was tossed in with the luggage.

XXX

When they got back, the Villager was grounded for two days. Then he was set free again.

XXX

**AN: Yup, Roy insulted you. Don't hate him; he's still bitter over not having been invited yet.**

**Thanks for reading! Leave a review!**


	11. What They Did While They Had No Power

"How am I supposed to play video games if we ain't got no power?"

"Do something else, Roy."

"Marth, what else is there? Our whole lives are video games." A huge, branching crack appeared in the fourth wall. A face was visible behind the wall of text. It looked sort of like one of those ugly smiling titans from that one anime. Yech, what a creep.

"Holy cheese! Don't say any more!" Marth yelped, and added in a lower tone, "Remember the last time the fourth wall broke? The fangirls were _everywhere_!"

"Oh yeah, especially the _yaoi_ ones…" Roy shuddered.

"Ugh, don't remind me. Their drawings were absolutely horrifying… _Anyway_, since we have no power, what are we gonna do? The sun's going down too," Marth said, pointing through a conveniently-placed window at the sinking sun. The sky was painted a fiery red, soon to take on the colors and darkness of night.

"Leave it to me!" a familiar, arrogant voice broke in.

Robin burst into the scene in slow motion, his cloak flapping epically behind him like a superhero cape even though there was no wind to be felt. He wore a heroic smile on his face, his hair flowing in the still-nonexistent wind. He came to a stop, flipping his hair back fabulously.

"How does he do that?" Roy whined. His own cape hung limply from his shoulders.

Robin smirked. "What, this?" he asked, and proceeded to somehow make his cloak fly up in epic slo-mo despite there being absolutely no wind at all. "Ike taught me how to do it."

"Wait, what?" Marth blurted.

"I wanna learn how!" Roy exclaimed.

"I'd gladly teach you, but, in the words of Professor Oak, 'there's a time and place for everything! But not now.' So instead, I shall bedazzle you with the magic of 5-Hour Energy!" Robin lifted a small bottle in the air triumphantly with a cry of "THORON!" There was a blinding flash of white light.

When it faded, Lucina was the first to speak. "Robin, you're glowing!"

"Where'd _she_ come from?" Roy whispered to Marth. The prince shrugged.

"Yes, I know," Robin said. The Fire Emblem reps would have said he looked like a human light bulb, what with his skin emitting bright light, but sadly light bulbs didn't exist in the Fire Emblem world. "But remember, it'll only last for five hours."

"Hey, you look like a disco ball," Roy said. Now how did he know about disco balls but not light bulbs? I'll have to ask someone about that…

"Prophet, shut up!" Marth yelled at the ceiling. Another crack appeared in the fourth wall. "Aw, poo."

"Disco ball? That sounds like a great idea!" Robin declared, bubbly as ever. "We should have a party!"

"Cool," Lucina said. "I'm sure Master Hand won't care. In fact, didn't he go on vacation a few days ago? Something about 'stressful smasher management…'"

"Awesome! Let's go!" Robin said. He and Lucina dashed off in the direction of the lobby, cloak and cape flowing majestically in the still air.

"She knows how to do it too? No fair…" Roy complained.

XXX

Ten frantic minutes later, almost all of the smashers had been gathered in the cafeteria, which was lit by Robin-light. Said tactician had been strung up to the ceiling like a marionette doll with the help of a benevolent Charizard. Meta Knight said he wanted to "preserve his dignity" and Pit just didn't want to. ("I'm being chased by enough yaoi fangirls already…") A huge set of Robin-powered stereos blasted music. Robin was currently dancing Gangnam Style in midair.

"Cool," Lucina said, cape flapping.

"FALCON PAWNCH!" Captain Falcon announced, carrying a gigantic fish tank filled to the brim with his specialty punch. The smashers had taken a huge aquarium tank and converted it into a drink cooler after their previous cooler had been swallowed by Kirby. (Sometimes his burps still smelled like Gatorade.)

"DID SOMEONE SAY CHICKEN?" Ike boomed, bursting through a wall.

"Save me!" Falco shrieked, fleeing for his life.

"FALCON PAWNCH!" Captain Falcon announced again.

"Chicken?" Ike said, head twisting around in search of chicken. He pointed at the aquarium cooler. "Is the juice chicken flavored?"

"Nope!" Captain Falcon said cheerily.

"Is there any chicken food?" Ike asked.

"Yep!" Captain Falcon said cheerily.

"Where!?"

The racer, with a mischievous grin, pointed a finger at a certain blue-quilled, extremely quick hedgehog. "Right over there."

"COOL!" Ike hollered, sprinting at poor Sonic. Predictably, he screamed in terror and bolted away at top speed. There was the sound of many walls and objects breaking.

"Why did you tell him that?" Marth asked Captain Falcon.

"So he's occupied! And plus, Sonic needs to be put in his place every once in a—"

He was interrupted when Ike crashed through the wall again. He stomped towards Captain Falcon and stuck an angry finger in the racer's face.

"You lied to me!" Ike roared. "THAT! WARN'T! NO! CHICKEN! Chickens don't run that fast! They don't have no big red clown shoes neither!"

Ike had gotten that ruse figured out surprisingly fast. Was it possible… that he was regaining smartness? …Nah. Captain Falcon desperately looked towards Marth for help.

Luckily, spending so much time dealing with (annoying) politicians in his homeland had given Marth a quick tongue. "Sorry, Ike. Captain Falcon just got botched laser eye surgery and couldn't tell that it wasn't actually a chicken. I mean, why do you think he wears that helmet-visor thing all the time? It's actually a prescription lens. He can't see very well," Marth lied convincingly.

"What's laser eye surgery?" Ike asked.

"Hey, look. Real chicken," Marth said, changing the subject and pointing to where food had been set out, because what party is complete without food? There were several aluminum serving trays filled with fried chicken and buffalo wings.

"CHICKEN!" Ike bellowed. (Link went deaf again.) The super buff mercenary was already gobbling down chicken before you could even say "Obsession much?"

"Whew, thanks! I owe you one," Captain Falcon said, wiping sweat off his forehead… except he wiped the sweat off his helmet. How was that even possible?

Marth nodded, filing away that information. It was good to be owed something. He left the captain and went over to where Ike was dumping an entire tray of superspicy buffalo wings into his mouth. Marth had tried eating one of those before. He ended up with his tongue stuck to the inside of the freezer in an attempt to cool down the spiciness. That had been embarrassing…

The prince said, "Hey, Ike, can I ask you something?"

Ike dumped the rest of the wings down his gullet before wiping a bit of Flaming Suicide Explosion Sauce (a smasher specialty) off his chin, tossing the tray over his shoulder (Peach was hit and launched through a wall) and responding eloquently with "Huh?"

A wave of spicy, nostril-searing heat emitted from Ike's mouth, so Marth had to cover his face until it was all gone. The front of his gloves were charred from the heat. Suppressing rage, he said, "Did you teach Robin how to do _this_ earlier?" Marth made his cape flutter up. (He had kept his knowledge of the trick a secret from Roy.)

"Ooh, that!" Ike exclaimed, making his own cape fly up as well. "Uh, is Robin the one with yellow hair?"

"No, that's Link."

"No, no! That's the green one. The other guy had a big, uh, well, it looked like half of one of those snippy things… what do you call em… skizzies?" Ike made a snipping movement with his fingers.

"Scissors?"

"Yeah, yeah! It was red, too. The guy looked like a Kingdom Hearts reject…" Ike said.

"You know what Kingdom Hearts is?" Marth gaped, amazed. He hadn't thought Ike even remembered what Smash Bros. was.

Ike nodded, but stopped mid-nod. His face became blank. "Wait, what's Kingdom Hearts?"

Marth facepalmed. "Never mind. Just tell me where this guy went."

"Over there," Ike said, pointing through a doorway. "He said something about a faulty… uh, I forgot."

"Okay, thanks," Marth said with a straight face, but his mind was moving a hundred miles an hour. A newcomer? With no warning? And _Ike_ had been the only one to see him? And he actually remembered what the guy looked like? Marth hadn't thought Ike was able to see anything in detail other than chicken. Marth mused to himself. _I mean, he thought Lucina was me… and that's not like a common mistake or anything! …I think._

XXX

Marth found the yellow-hair guy staring up at something in the ceiling. The Robin-light wasn't bright enough here, so Marth had to squint.

"Hello," the prince said. "Are you a newcomer?"

"Huh?" the guy said, fixing his gaze on Marth. "Whoa, you're Marth! Oh my gosh, I _love_ your games! Fire Emblem is my favorite!"

Another crack appeared in the fourth wall. Marth forced himself to remain calm.

"Did I do something wrong?" the guy asked nervously.

"Well, it's just that we prefer to stay away from talking about _that_ stuff, just because of the fangirls…"

"Ah, sorry. Didn't know. But wow, you're MARTH! The actual prince of Altea! You're so awesome!"

Whoa, this noobie knew who he was? Marth was secretly flattered. "Uh, thanks, but I kind of knew that already… So, are you a newcomer?"

"Oh, yeah. I just got here. Name's Shulk. Wow, I can't believe I'm actually talking to _the_ Marth… _THE_ Marth! I can't believe I actually got invited here! I can't believe that I'm actually going to be one of the smashers! I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH I CAN'T BELIEVE!"

"Eh, almost everyone is like that when they first get here. You'll get used to it," Marth said. He had plenty of experience dealing with this type of noobie. "What was in the ceiling that you were looking at?"

"Oh, well, it's just that you seem to have a leak. See, look." Shulk pointed at the ceiling.

"I guess we'll have to get that fixed. In the meantime, why don't you join the party?" Marth suggested. "I can't see well here anyway."

Shulk nodded so hard, Marth was afraid his head would fly off. He bubbled, "Omigosh, I can't wait to meet _more_ smashers! I bet they're all as awesome as you! WOW!"

Marth led him along before he could have a heart attack.

XXX

"…And that's Meta Knight. He looks harsh, but he's actually pretty nice once you warm up to him. Just don't get in a fight with him; he can be pretty merciless on the battlefield. I mean, he isn't top tier for nothing. And…I think that was everybody," Marth said. He was just introducing all the smashers to Shulk, but he didn't think that the noobie really needed it. Man, the guy was a total nerd!

"Yup!" Shulk said. After a moment, he added, "Wait, you forgot about Luigi."

"Oh yeah." Marth slapped his forehead, but then shrugged. "You already know about him, so what does it matter?"

Shulk shrugged too. "You know what, I don't even know where my room is. I'm gonna find Mario." He walked away, leaving Marth alone. The prince sighed. Now he had no excuse to avoid Ike…

"I FINISHED ALL THE CHICKEN!" Ike boasted.

"Poyo! He stole it all!" Kirby complained.

"What? There's no chicken left already?" King Dedede grumbled.

"Isn't that cannibalism?" Zelda wondered.

"What? No! I'm no chicken!" King Dedede protested.

"DID YOU SAY 'I'M A CHICKEN'?!" Ike bellowed, leaping on King Dedede. Luckily, the king was so fat and balloon-like that Ike bounced off. King Dedede took the opportunity and waddled away frantically.

"Yoshi!" Yoshi yoshi'd, eating Ike for no reason. He pooped out a huge egg, which Ike immediately broke out of.

"MEANIE!" Ike yelled, punching Yoshi. The unfortunate dinosaur smashed through walls before sailing out the side of the mansion, into the sky, and disappearing in the distance.

"Yoshiii…"

"I'll get him," Fox muttered, fishing in his pocket for the keys to his Arwing.

"Uh, hey guys?" Robin called from where he was still hanging from the ceiling, checking his Instagram, where he had over 9000 followers. For the first time ever, his voice lacked his usual bravado. "I know it hasn't been five hours yet, but I used some of my 5-Hour Thoron to power the stereos… so yeah…"

"Yeah what?" Samus asked.

"Well—" Robin began, but he was cut short when the stereos abruptly went silent and his light vanished. The smashers were engulfed in a thick, impenetrable blackness.

"That's what," Robin said. "Can someone get me down?"

No one moved. There was a long, awkward silence before Lucina broke in. "You know, we really have to get you a bottomless 5-Hour Energy."

XXX

**AN: Oops, I haven't updated for two weeks... hehe... Let's just say that I was too ****_busy _****to write Ike... yeah... And this is just a heads-up that updates might be slower from now on since school's started and because I borrowed my friend's copy of Fire Emblem Awakening and am playing the heck out of it! I'm only on Chapter 5, but it's already super fun! I left my Avatar as the default Robin. He's already my highest-level unit! Sadly, I already know who "Marth" is thanks to Lucina being in SSB4... and that her dad is Chrom... :(**

**Oh, well. Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Thanks for reading, and leave a review!**

**PS. Please, please, Nintendo, even if the leaks were confirmed, PLEASE don't let the Duck Hunt Dog be playable...**


	12. A Slightly Unstable Helping Hand

"AAAHHHHH!" Marth and Lucina screamed shrilly with enough force to blast the windows out. Roy burst out laughing.

"Whoa, you're Roy! AWESOME! I thought you left after Melee!" Shulk blurted.

"Well, I'm back now… Hey, how can you see me? I can't see my own hand in front of my face." Roy waved his hand for emphasis, but he couldn't see where he was waving it and accidentally hit himself.

"I FORESEE IT! Darkness ain't got nothing on Shulk!" Shulk boasted. "Like, right now I can see Yoshi floating around in space. Oh, he tried eating a space rock. He licked a spaceship. He's taking a selfie, but his phone is backwards. Haha, fail!"

"Whoa… that's so cool! I would totally abuse that power! …Wait, Yoshi has a phone…?"

"Uh, well, good thing you can't FORESEE IT… So anyway, why are Marth and Lucina panicking and smacking into everyone?"

"Oh, Marth is afraid of the dark," Roy explained while trying unsuccessfully to keep a straight face. "I mean, seriously, he's the legendary Hero-King of Altea, slayer of the _dark_ dragon Medeus, and he still sleeps with a night-light."

"Really?" Shulk giggled.

"Yeah, and looks like it got passed down all the way to Luc—"

"Mole crabs, attack!" someone yelled. There was the clicking of countless tiny legs scuttling across the floor and onto some people.

"What the—!" Roy choked out before he was swallowed by a wave of crawling, thumb-nail size critters.

"BUGS!" Shulk shrieked, activating his Monado Speed and fleeing from the relentless army of miniscule mole crabs.

For a few moments, all was chaos as the mole crabs scurried and scrambled over everyone and everything. Then Bowser miraculously realized that fire = light and breathed out a pillar of flame, illuminating the room temporarily and frying several thousand mole crabs and one unfortunate smasher into charred crisps. "That hurt," Luigi whimpered.

There was an audible crunch as Bowser popped several burnt mole crabs into his mouth. "Yum! Tastes like chicken!"

Of course, Bowser's exclamation did not go unheard by Ike despite the screaming and mole crabs. "DID SOMEONE SAY CHICKEN?! I haven't had chicken for sixty whole seconds! That's over 9000 milliseconds!" Ike scooped up some fried mole crabs and dumped them into his mouth. They stayed there for about 0.001 seconds (1 millisecond) before he spat them out with a roar of "THIS AIN'T CHICKEN!" He then somehow managed to punch Bowser even in the pitch blackness, sending the Koopa King flying out through the walls to join Yoshi in space. Luckily, the huge hole Bowser created in the ceiling provided enough moonlight to allow the smashers to at least be able to make out vague shapes. Of course, it was still pretty hard to do anything because mole crabs were still swarming everywhere. Robin was the only one who was safe, as he was still dangling from the ceiling. He was taking flash photos of the scene below him, cackling like a maniac. Why didn't he use the phone's light to help the others? Well, he was too busy thinking how hilarious this would be on Instagram.

Ike was still running berserk, crushing mole crabs into crab cakes with every stomp of his thunderous boots. "WHERE'S THE CHICKEN!" he bellowed. People were scrambling to get out his path. Sadly, Luigi tripped on an overturned chair and was trampled.

The whole time, I was thinking _Why doesn't Charizard just help? Fire = light, right?_ Well, Charizard had taken to hiding in his Pokeball whenever Ike was around.

Suddenly, Samus, who had just been standing there while mole crabs crawled all over her, was enlightened. A groundbreaking idea had just popped into her head. "Hey, doesn't Palutena have that Heavenly Light attack?"

"Oh, yeah," Pit said. "Lady Palutena, how come you didn't think of that?"

"I'm using a different power set!" Palutena objected.

Samus looked at her like that.

"Don't look at me like that!" Palutena barked, waving her staff and turning Samus into an HDF (Highly Defined Fish). The bounty hunter, now in koi form, flopped on the carpet of mole crabs helplessly in gorgeous high definition. Her 1080 pixel resolution practically made her glow in the darkness. Palutena created a bowl of water around her so she wouldn't drown. (Can you drown in air?)

"Lady Palutena, I didn't know you had a Fish Transformation power! And plus, how come you never made yourself and me in 1080p?" Pit wondered.

"Umm… better late than never!" Palutena quickly said, pointing her staff at Pit and turning him into an HDTV (Highly Defined Turkey Vulture). He flapped his gorgeous high definition wings and lifted into the air, delighted at finally being able to fly by himself (and especially in high-def).

"Hi, Pit!" Robin said, waving at the beautifully-rendered vulture. "Wow, you're looking defined! Did you get a new haircut or something?"

Pit flew out of the Bowser-shaped hole and into the night sky. _FREEDOM!_ he seemed to say.

Palutena observed this from the floor, not seeming the slightest bit worried that her only angel was now soaring away in the form of a turkey vulture. "I always knew he was a scavenger," she remarked. "Now where was I? Hmm… Ah, yes. AAAAAHHHH, MOLE CRABS!"

XXX

Somewhere in Japan, Crazy Hand was enjoying a manicure at wherever a giant disembodied hand would go to get a manicure. He was just chatting with his manicurist about the new Smash Bros. demo when his hand-y senses tingled. He sat(?) straight up, accidentally knocking the poor manicurist against the wall. Crazy Hand clenched into a fist and punched himself out a window, attracting many stares from passersby. Who would be stupid enough to give Crazy Hand a manicure anyway?

XXX

Back at the Smash mansion, Shulk saw a large white object speeding towards the smashers at a ridiculous pace. He said, "Hey, what's that large white object speeding towards us at a ridiculous pace?"

"You tell me! I can't see a thing," Roy said. By this time, he was ignoring the mole crabs and proceeding about calmly while small things scuttled all over his body. Good thing he wasn't ticklish (unlike Marth).

"Man, it is moving ridiculously fast!" Shulk exclaimed. "Hey, watch out, it's about to—"

The ridiculously-paced large white object shot through a wall, crashing into poor Luigi and knocking him into a space where he joined Bowser and Yoshi. ("So, what's hanging?" Bowser said.)

"HELLO PEEPS! LONG TIME NO SLAP!" the ridiculously-paced large white object screamed, slapping everyone within reach. The people who weren't slapped simultaneously took one huge step backwards.

"WHAT!" the ridiculously-paced large white object shrieked. "YOU DON'T EVEN GOT NO LIGHT. HOW CAN YOU HAVE FUN IF YOU CAN'T SEE IT?"

There was a sound of enormous fingers snapping and then a bright white light lit up the room. Everyone squinted as their eyes adjusted to the brightness… Well, everyone except the Villager, who remained characteristically wide-eyed and psychotic.

"Hey! Where did you come from?" Roy demanded, having seen the above text. (Another crack appeared in the fourth wall.) He pointed at the Villager, who was standing in a corner, completely mole crab free.

Ike gasped. "The chicken man!" he cried, running at the Villager. He pounced, but the Villager sidestepped at the last moment, letting Ike fly past him and into the wall. Ike was unharmed, but the same could not be said for the wall.

The Villager knelt and opened his palm. As if called by an unheard command, all the remaining mole crabs stopped and crawled into his palm. He put them all in his pocket and said, "Well, the day has been ruined again. I must admit, I did not count upon your appearance, Crazy Hand."

"YOU DIDN'T COUNT ON ME?" the ridiculously-paced large white object said. "WELL, THAT'S GOOD, BECAUSE I CAN'T COUNT EITHER!"

Mario, who had been squirming on the ground, suddenly realized that there were no more mole crabs and leapt to his feet, trying to preserve what little dignity he had left. "Villager, I thought you were grounded! How did you get out?"

The Villager only smiled. However, he didn't notice Ike behind him before it was too late.

"YOU'RE A LIAR! FOR CHICKEN! …and my friends!" Ike boomed, delivering a vicious uppercut to the Villager. Little Mac whistled in appreciation.

The Villager flew out of the mansion, creating more holes and sailing into space.

"What!" Mario said. "If he is in space, he can't be in the grounding room! Oh well, I will just tell Fox to only pick up Bowser, Yoshi, and Luigi, and leave Villager. He will serve the rest of his sentence in space."

"IS THE PARTY OVER ALREADY?" Crazy Hand asked. "THAT'S NO GOOD! WE HAVE TO GET IT STARTED AGAIN!"

"But we have no power! And Robin ran out of 5-Hour Energy!" Mario protested. In reality, he just didn't want a mentally unstable hand partying anywhere within a 9001 mile radius of anywhere.

"BOOM!" Crazy Hand said, snapping his fingers. "POWER BACK! BOTTOMLESS 5-HOUR ENERGY FOR ROBIN! BY THE WAY, ROBIN, ARE YOU A NOOB? I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU BEFORE."

"Yep, just got here earlier this summer!" Robin said. "By the way, can someone get me down already? These ropes are _really_ starting to hurt."'

XXX

**AN: Awakening is SO FUN! Too bad it's only a friend's copy. :( I got Lon'qu+Panne and Sully+Libra married just for the irony of it, and I'm working on getting Robin and Lucina together! But if they have a kid together, doesn't that mean Chrom's a granddaddy...? *shudders***

**Anyway, thanks for reading! Leave a review!**

**PS. I put a Brawl in the Family reference in this chapter... :)**


	13. A Dreaded Invasion

**Official-sounding disclaimer: The content in this chapter was written solely for the purpose of entertainment and is not meant to be offensive. If you are offended by over-exaggeration and a ridiculous portrayal of fangirls, the author suggests that you do not read this chapter.**

XXX

"Yes! I'm finally free!" Robin cried, prancing around jubilantly with his hands in the air.

"BEEP!" Mr. Game and Watch beeped.

"FLAT MAN! YOU GOT SOMETHING TO SAY?" Crazy Hand screamed. "WELL, WHATCHOO SAYIN'?"

"BEEP!" Mr. Game and Watch beeped again.

"OF COURSE I'M SANE! I'M SO SANE, I MAKE PEOPLE LOOK SUGAR-FREE! WHAT MAKES YOU THINK OTHERWISE?"

"BEEP!"

"WHAT? I BELONG IN A _MENTAL ASYLUM? _I DO NOT! THE FOOD THERE ISN'T EVEN ANY GOOD! FLAT MAN, YOU JUST GOT YO SELF IN A WHOLE LOTTA TROUBLE!" Crazy Hand snapped his fingers and waggled from side to side in a Z shape. "FALCON PAWNCH!"_  
_

Poor Mr. Game and Watch didn't stand a chance. He sailed out of the mansion, face first. That meant that he phased through without leaving a scratch, since he was so infinitely thin the 2-D way that he could pass between the pixels of the wall.

"BEEEeeeep...!" he beeped as he sailed out into space to join the Villager. (Yoshi and Bowser had already been picked up by Fox.)

"THIS IS PRETTY FUN!" Crazy Hand said, flexing his fingers. "I DIDN'T GET TO PUNCH NEARLY ENOUGH PEOPLE IN BRAWL!"

At that statement, most of the people who where even remotely familiar with the unstable hand fled for their lives. Marth didn't run because he was confident that he could counter anything Crazy Hand threw at him, and cowardice would ruin his image. Ike was preoccupied with overturning tables in search of chicken.

"WOOHOO!" Crazy Hand whooped, launching Rosalina, the Wii Fit Trainer, Mega Man, Greninja, and Pac-Man into space. The hand also tried to punch Ike, but the super buff mercenary didn't even react and all Crazy Hand earned himself was a dislocated pinky.

"OUCH!" he screamed, magicking his finger back into place. Then he turned from side to side repeatedly like he was trying to look around. "HEY, WHERE DID Y'ALL GO? THE PARTY AIN'T EVEN STARTED YET!"

Marth was 100% sure that nobody wanted to party with Crazy Hand and was about to say so when the hand hollered "LOOK AT THAT!" and, curling into a fist, flew directly into a certain half-cracked, unmentionable magic wall.

Specifically, the fourth wall.

The poor wall, already weakened from numerous breaches, shattered completely under the force of Crazy Hand's blow. It vanished into nonexistence, meaning that there was now nothing standing between the smashers and a very ravenous, _very _overenthusiastic swarm of vicious fangirls (and boys. I don't judge). Marth realized that his sanity was now endangered and said a word so naughty, I'd have to bump the rating up if I put it in this fanfic.

Time seemed to slow down as the glistening shards of the fourth wall spiraled into nothingness, glimmering as they fell in the last precious moments of their lives. More and more pieces of the fourth wall dissolved, leaving only a starving crowd of rabid fans. Marth couldn't get his feet to move. He was suddenly transported back to Melee, watching this same event occuring, witnessing the fourth wall going, going, gone, unknowing of the horrors that were to come. And that was only Melee, when the fans were not so numerous, maybe not so crazed. Marth's mind kept replaying the event over and over, watching the fourth wall disappear again and again, when he was interrupted from his reverie by a deafening clamor of feral screams.

The fans poured forth.

"RUN!" the prince shrieked, muscles finally responding to his panicking brain. He scrambled away, frantically shoving Ike to get his attention.

"Huh? What?" Ike stammered, looking up. He caught sight of the flood of fans and his eyes widened, his mind for once perfectly lucid.

"GO!" Marth screeched, sprinting away as fast as he could, hoping that Ike was following. He knew what fangirls were capable of, and he wouldn't wish a fate like that even on his worst enemy.

Robin was almost plowed over by the frenzied prince. "Whoa, Marth! Ike! Why the hurry?"

"Crazy Hand punched through the fourth wall. Fangirls got in," Marth puffed. "Run!"

"They don't have any chicken!" Ike added.

"Fangirls?" Robin mused, putting a finger to his chin. "Don't worry, sirs Hero-King and Radiant Hero. I got this."

"No, wait!" Marth cried, but Robin was already facing the flood.

"I've had enough of you fangirls! Not even two years since Awakening was released and I'm already sick of seeing BL everywhere! You can't pair me up with another male! I refuse to be in a yaoi ship!" Robin declared, confidently addressing the fangirls with arms outstretched.

"So try... THIS!"

Robin was engulfed in an explosion of white smoke. An awkward silence pervaded the air.

XXX

When the smoke dissipated, Marth, Ike, and the fangirls stared in shock at the suddenly shorter, smaller tactician.

"Checkmate!" the female Robin said triumphantly, flipping back her long hair_._

The yaoi fangirls hissed and recoiled in disgust at Robin's sudden unmanliness. They couldn't ship yaoi with a _female!_ "HETEROS!" one of them screamed, fleeing in pursuit of other, male-er smashers.

Robin turned her head back to look at Marth and Ike, who were openly staring. "What are you openly staring at?" she demanded.

Ike said, "I didn't know boys could be so pretty! Except Marth."

"Hey!"

"How do you turn pretty?" Ike asked. "I wanna have instant fangirl repellent!"

"Ask the Wii Fit Trainer. Now let's run before they come to their senses!" Robin urged, pulling Ike and a dazed Marth along by the wrists.

"Uhh..." the articulate prince muttered. "And I thought people were confused about _my _gender... Am I supposed to call you a he or a she?"

Robin smirked. "What do you see?"

"Umm... a person? I think?"

"I see _not chicken!" _Ike chipped in.

"Then I'm a she for now, just to spare the Prophet confusion," Robin said. The fourth wall spun in its grave.

XXX

Roy was backed up against the wall, cornered by salivating fangirls on all sides. The only thing holding them at bay was the Sword of Seals, flaming brightly. Link was next to him, Hylian shield held up defensively.

"Stay back!" Roy yelled, waving the Sword of Seals. "I'll gut you if you step any closer!" He wouldn't actually gut them, of course (that wouldn't be appropriate for K+), but he might give them a good thwack on the head with the Sword's hilt, maybe enough to give them a concussion.

Behind the crowd of fangirls, Ness ran by, pursuited by more fangirls. "I'm too young to be shipped!" he wailed.

In the moment that Roy's attention was diverted by Ness, the fangirls pressed closer, giggling madly. One darted forward and grabbed Link's shield, shrieking in delight while trying to wrestle it off the Hylian's arm.

"Hyaaaah!" Link cried in alarm, jerking away.

Roy bonked the fangirl on the head with his sword hilt. It collapsed to the floor, unconscious. _That was pretty fun! _Roy thought.

A few other fangirls shuffled backwards warily, still with grotesque smiles plastered across their faces. In Roy's opinion, they looked sort of like jack'o'lanterns - except jack'o'lanterns didn't exist back in his world. Now where did he learn about those?

"Hey guys am I late?" Pit said suddenly, popping his head through a hole in the ceiling (they were pretty common these days). The HDTV (Highly Defined Turkey Vulture) transformation effect had worn off.

"AAAAHHHH!" a fangirl screamed shrilly in a sound like nails against a chalkboard. Everyone else (including other fangirls) jumped in shock. Pit fell through the ceiling hole and landed in a heap on Roy and Link, screaming girlishly all the way.

The fangirls, seeing that Roy's sword arm was now smushed under a big feathery pile of angel, miraculously came to the conclusion that Roy could no longer hit them on the head or anywhere else painful and pounced like a pack of very, _very_ hungry (and slightly insane) Kirbies.

XXX

**AN: Augh! Sorry for the abrupt cutoff! And shortish chapter! And long wait! Uhh, what do I say...? I was too busy to write? I was too _lazy_ to write? I dunno! I've been occupied with school and tennis and playing Awakening and there's been barely any time for Ike! D:  
**

**Sooo... I have Maribelle and Ricken married to each other, and I just recruited their kid Brady. HE LOOKS _SO OLD!_ I mean, older than his parents combined! *shudders* It's too weird to think of Brady calling _Ricken_ "Pa." And also Ricken having Brady listed as his child... Uhhhh... *shudders again* I also got Cynthia, and since I have Chrom married to Sumia, she's Lucina's sister. Their sister support was hilarious! I won't spoil. On a side note, Ricken is steadily climbing the favorite character ladder! He's already surpassed Link and Lon'qu. Sorry, guys! I still love you. (It's just that Ricken is better!)**

**Anyway, thanks for reading! I promise next chapter will be better. :P**

**PS. I am a proud shipper of LinkxPit. be disgusted by me if you want**


	14. The Second Part of the Dreaded Invasion

"Robin, the yaoi shippers are still chasing us! And especially after me and Ike! I didn't know antisocial nerds could run so fast... They don't care about you! DO SOMETHING, _TACTICIAN!"_ Marth puffed, feet pounding down the hallway. Ike and Robin were also running for their lives from the horde of fangirls behind them. Their crazed, glass-shattering screams pierced the air uncomfortably. The din they created resembled a stampede of angry Rampardos. Marth would know; Sinnoh was his favorite region.

"Give me a moment, Hero-King!" Robin shot back. "I need to think."

"Could you think a little faster, please?!"

"Genius cannot be rushed!"

"Neither can good fried chicken!"

"Now's not really a good time, Ike! There's a crowd of fangirls behind us that are trying to _ship us together!_ EW! Like, I'm already married back home!"

"Speaking of chicken, I'm kinda hungry," Ike said as if he hadn't heard Marth at all (which was probably the case). He skidded to a halt and turned around with a dazzling grin on his face. "Hey ladies, you got any chicken?"

For a split second, the fangirls paused. One of them had blood trickling down from a nostril. A few exchanged glances like they were communicating telepathically. Then, as a collective force, they struck. Ike was drowned under a writhing mass of hormone-driven bodies.

At once, fangirls flew through walls and the ceiling as if a bomb had gone off. Ike burst up from the mass, roaring in anger, flinging fangirls left and right. Some of them soared into space. ("Is that... a _fangirl?!"_ Mega Man cried in dismay.) Ike was a formidable force, but there were simply too many fangirls. They again shoved him down, screaming and taking pictures.

"FUDGE NUTS!" Marth cursed loudly, turning back in a hopeless attempt to salvage Ike from the fangirls' wrath. In his stupidity, the maniacal females were able to pull him down too.

"Well, this sucks," Robin said calmly. She casually leaned back against a wall and pulled out her phone to text Lucina. _Hey, where r u? Safe from the fangirls?_

Lucina immediately replied with the stalkerish quality of someone who checks their phone every three seconds waiting for a message. _Yeah, im safe. Scared them away. Only had to kill 37. How about u?_

_I'm ok. I discouraged them by gender changing. Marth and ike got caught. Wanna see a pic?_

_Omg, YES!_

Robin took a conveniently-timed photo of Marth and Ike desperately clawing at the floor and the fangirls in a futile attempt to escape. The tactician laughed so hard at the perfect shot that she started crying tears of epicness. She texted the pic to Lucina, who replied _LOL! dying of laughter! _and put it on Snapchat, Instagram, Tumblr, and everywhere else where it would be extremely embarrassing. Hopefully Marth and Ike never found out who posted that picture.

"Ok, time to help," Robin muttered to herself, clawing around in her pocket for a familiar red-and-black bottle. She twisted the cap off and chugged down the contents, which immediately refilled themselves. (Ah, the magic of bottomless drinks!) The tactician suddenly received a boost of strength and invigoration. She felt like she could run faster than a taguel and cut down a thousand Risen without faltering. Magical energy surged through her veins, buzzing at her fingertips. The world around her stood out in super-sharp detail. Every screaming fangirl was distinguishable, every sweat-stink smellable. Robin could do _anything_ with Infinite-Hour Energy. She was unstoppable.

"Elwind!" she shouted, casting blades of wind at the fangirls. The deranged creatures were flung off of Marth, who was curled up in the fetal position, sucking his thumb, and Ike, who was completely unperturbed and had somehow gotten hold of a fried chicken leg. Robin checked for injuries, but there seemed to be no serious wounds. However, every inch of their exposed skin was painted in makeup smears and lipstick marks.

"Save me, save me..." Marth chanted distantly, rocking back and forth. Ike tore ravenously into the chicken leg and finished it in three seconds. He threw the bone at a wall. It rocketed through, creating a hole. From the roof of the mansion, where he was repairing a different hole, ROB sighed as best as a robot operational buddy could.

"Save me, save me..."

Robin poked Marth on the face none too gently.

"Ouch!" the dignified, noble prince yelped. He got to his feet and did his best to wipe off the makeup stains on his face, but all he did was mix up the colors and make it look even more disgusting. Ike stood up and rubbed his face with his cape, instantly removing all the makeup and leaving his face spotless.

"Oh great and majestic Hero-King, are you done acting like the princely royal you are?" Robin said with as sarcasm as she could muster (which wasn't very much; arrogance was more her thing).

"Shut up!" Marth screamed, tidying his rumpled hair.

"No. Now hurry up and let's go!" Robin urged. "It was tough, but I thought of a plan. We've got some people to save."

"Wait, but where did all the fangirls suddenly disappear to? They just got blown off. They had to have gone somewhere..." Ike wondered aloud. No one seemed to hear him.

XXX

"Truth or dare?!"

"Ugh... isn't there another option?" Roy tried despairingly.

"You have truth, dare, or would you rather! YOU HAVE TO PICK!" the fangirl shrieked, puke-green eyes gleaming with animalistic pleasure behind sparkly leopard-print glasses. Its dyed-pink hair bounced in disgusting gelled anime curls. Its facial expression reminded Link of a wolf when its prey has been cornered by the pack. (He had seen that enough times to know.)

The rest of the fangirl pack squealed in bestial delight. The noise was deafening. Link wanted to cover his ears and let there just be silence. He, Roy, and Pit had been driven into a corner and forced to play truth or dare or would you rather against their will. They were sitting cross-legged on the ground, extremely uncomfortable under the scrutiny of rows and rows of fangirls. This was definitely going to leave deep psychological scars if they got out of it alive... Their future seemed bleak. Link hoped that he would go to a happier place when he died.

"Um, would you rather," Roy said, sweat cascading down his face.

The foul fangirl shrieked even louder, fists shaking in giddiness. Without missing a beat, it screamed, "Would you rather kiss Link or Marth?!"

Link turned as green as his hat. If only the goddesses would be so merciful as to smite him now... Roy looked like he wanted to sink a mile into the ground.

"Um, can I repick?" he said.

"ANSWER!" the fangirl bellowed, loud enough to make Link go deaf (but his eardrums had already become accustomed to this kind of volume thanks to Ike).

"Uh... I guess... oh jeez, this is awkward... um, Marth?"

"HA! I KNEW IT!" the fangirl screamed while several of its brethren fainted from nosebleed blood loss. A large group of fangirls screamed "NO!" and started tearing at their hair in anguish.

"My turn!" another fangirl said, scooting forward. This one had long black hair tied back in a ponytail and colorful hair clips all over its revolting scalp. The metal bands of retainers flashed at its teeth. It wore a green shirt emblazoned with the Hyrule family crest. Link would have been happy to see it if the wearer hadn't been so repulsive.

"Pit, truth or dare or would you rather?"

"Gods help me..." Pit muttered to himself. "Uh, truth."

The fangirl smiled a gigantic, nauseating, ear-to-ear smile. "Truth. Are you ashamed to admit that Link is secretly your boyfriend?"

Link tasted barf in the back of his throat. He did his best to remain impassive, but was sure that he did a pretty poor job of it. _Kill me now, _he begged the goddesses.

"W-What?! That's not a fair question! And it's not even true!" Pit protested, warily watching the fangirls for any signs of aggression. Their position was precarious. One wrong move could send an avalanche crashing down on their heads...

"YOU KNOW IT IS!" the horrid fangirl screeched, face contorting into twisted rage. "CONFESS YOUR ETERNAL LOVE!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"NO!"

"YES!"

_"NO!"_

_"YES!"_

"...Ugh, fine," Pit grumbled, and added in a lower voice, "But only because it isn't true."

"Ha-HA! YES! I WAS RIGHT! LINKPIT FOREVER!" the putrid fangirl cheered, emitting waves of Hot Cheeto scented breath. It retreated to let another take its place.

_I guess it's my_ _turn..._ Link thought, mentally prepping himself for what horrors were to come.

In the background, Lucas ran by, chased by a mob of rabid fangirls. He screamed, "This is why I told Ness I didn't want the job anymore!"

"Link, truth or dare or would you rather?" the next fangirl said. It was the most hideous of the three, complete with bad acne, greasy hair, and thick glasses lenses. Link imagined it being eaten by a gigantic Deku Baba, or maybe the fierce dragon Volvagia he had heard stories about. Thinking about that made this all a little more bearable.

_Dare,_ he hand signed. _But no inappropriate stuff, or the Prophet will kick you out of this story._ The fourth wall spun in its grave again.

The fangirl was already fluent in Linkese and needed no translation. Link wasn't sure whether to be pleased or creeped out. The fangirl said, "I dare you to... go tell Crazy Hand that you think he sucks!"

Link sighed in relief. A safe dare. Thank Hylia it hadn't been something like "I dare you to make out with _blank."_

"That simple? Lucky!" Roy muttered.

_Fine then, _Link told the fangirl. _You have to get him here._

"YES!" it agreed overenthusiastically, springing to its feet and darting off, calling Crazy Hand's name.

The insane hand poofed himself into the room almost instantaneously. "YOU CALLED?!" he said.

"You suck," Link said aloud in heavily accented speech.

Everyone, Roy and Pit included, gasped in shock, more from hearing Link speak than from seeing the hand being called sucky.

"I SUCK? EXCUSE ME, HOW r00d!" Crazy Hand spluttered indignantly. "YOU SUCK EVEN MORE!"

The hand blasted himself at Link, but only succeeded in hitting the absurdly sturdy Hylian Shield and jamming his already-hurt pinkie finger.

"OUCH AGAIN!" Crazy Hand hollered, magicking his finger into place again.

_Dare done, _Link hand signed.

"HEY WAIT!" Crazy Hand said, having just noticed the fangirls. "WHEN DID ALL THESE PRETTY LADIES GET HERE?"

"When you broke the fourth wall," Roy said.

"WHAT? I DON'T REMEMBER FOUR SECONDS AGO! MUCH LESS FOUR WALLS! BUT YOU KNOW WHERE ALL THESE LADIES BELONG? PROXIMA CENTAURI! TO SPACE YOU GO!"

With that, he began slapping and punching like a mad-hand, sending countless fangirls flying at supersonic speeds up past the atmosphere and into outer space. (_"More _of them?" Mega Man wailed.) The remaining fangirls screamed in terror and fangirliness and fled.

Just then, there was a ridiculously loud tuba noise that shook the entire mansion. "DUCK AND COVER!" someone yelled somewhere. The smashers, having unfortunately had prior experiences with this kind of situation, hit the deck, covering their noses. Crazy Hand didn't care because he didn't have a nose anyway.

The unfortunate fangirls were unprepared for the noxious fumes that came rushing down the hallways, assaulting every unprotected nostril with vile odors of garlic and Mexican beans. They dropped like flies, KO'd by the horrific stench.

"Waa ha ha!" Wario laughed, ambling down the hallway victoriously. He was completely unaffected by the toxic gas in the air. "Fangirls no match for extra-strength fart power!"

Robin, Marth, and Ike followed, gas masks secured on their faces. "It was my plan," Robin said in a Sith Lord voice, tossing back her ponytails. "I knew a regular outside-world human wouldn't be able to withstand a full-power waft from Wario."

"Wait, you're a girl now?" Roy blurted.

Robin was suddenly engulfed in smoke. She stepped forward out of the smoke cloud, but she seemed to have grown in size. And where was all her hair?

"Ta-da!" the tactician said, spreading her arms out. Er, well, _his _arms. Robin had magically become a male again.

"Wait, HUH?!" Roy said, utterly confused.

"Look at all the bodies!" Ike cut in. "It's just like back home after a bloody battle! Ah, memories..."

"Except they're not dead," Marth said, nudging a drooling fangirl with the very tip of his boot.

"EW! I AIN'T TOUCHING THEM!" Crazy Hand screamed, shooting off through the walls to resume his unfinished manicure somewhere in Japan. Hopefully the manicurist would still be willing to buff and shine his nails for him. (It was doubtful.)

"When nobody else wants to touch the corpses, Palutena is in charge of clean-up! Leave it to me!" a certain goddess with ridiculous amounts of green hair called out. How did she even sit down with that much hair?

Palutena waved her staff and vanished all of the fangirls in the mansion. They were sent to Australia, where a very unlucky and bewildered man gawked in disbelief at the ginormous pile of female bodies in his backyard.

"All done!" Palutena said, dusting her hands off against each other.

"Hey, Lady Palutena?" Pit said.

"Yes, Pit?"

"How come you didn't just make them all disappear earlier?"

"Um..." Palutena rushed to think up a plausible excuse, but gave up and simply waved her staff, transforming Pit into an HDE (Highly Defined Eggplant). Poor Pit was now a large unpalatable oblong purple vegetable with wings.

"AAAAHHHHHH!" the gorgeous 1080p eggplant screamed.

XXX

**AN: SMASH BROS. 3DS COMES OUT ON FRIDAY! I am PUMPED! ...Or I would be, but I'm not getting it... I'm waiting for the Wii U version... :'(**

**So, speaking of Smash Bros. 3DS, will Ike finally become better like Sakurai promised? I dunno. (That feels like such a long time ago...)**

**No Awakening updates this time because I started playing the Smash Bros. demo and I haven't turned off my 3DS in days to conserve my uses! I'm sorry, 3DS! I keep you properly charged all the time, though! X_X**

**As always, thanks for reading! Reviews will be fed to the author's brain. They make Mr. Brain very happy! And then he just fills my skull with rainbows!**


	15. On Smashing Day

The fourth wall had been repaired, and the mansion had returned to a state of peace. Master Hand had returned from his vacation to prepare for the traditional opening ceremony. The past few days had been uneventful, but today, oh! Today was a whole 'nother story! Marth pranced down the hallways with a spring in his step. The new tournament was beginning! Today was a fresh start for everyone in the mansion. Marth thought back to when he had been a noobie, many years ago. He remembered the magical feeling of becoming part of the smasher family. Back then there had been much fewer smashers. Smash World had come so far since Melee...

But now was not the time to be reminiscing in the past! Now was the time to look forward and see new smashers, new battlefields, and a new dawn! Later today, they would have the opening ceremony, and then the fourth Smash Bros. tournament would officially be underway. Marth was so excited that if excitement were an explosive, he was sure the mansion would have been reduced to a smoking crater. _SMASH BROS. WAS STARTING!_ Was there more that needed to be said? The newcomers (having been salvaged from space) were especially thrilled to participate in their first tournament. Even the Villager was acting a little saner than usual.

Nothing could possibly ruin this day. Marth had been looking forward to it ever since the smashers had headed home after Brawl ended. Even the rest of the world seemed to be in a particularly good mood. The sun shone brightly in the sky, casting a joyous light on everything it touched. Birds were singing, flowers were blooming (yes, in October), and ROB had finally repaired all the holes in the mansion. What a glorious, beautiful, flawless day to be alive!

Loud crashing noises and yells from Dr. Mario's office were audible through the wall.

Well, it was an _almost_ flawless day to be alive. Marth knitted his brow as he remembered that, according to Masahiro Sakurai, Ike was supposed to be better by now. In fact, he was at Dr. Mario's office right now. The doctor's foolproof diagnosis technique would decide everything. Marth had almost managed to forget about Ike... _almost, _yet he hadn't been able to banish Ike's stupid SBBL entirely from his brain. Design changes were such a hassle... Marth could only pray that Ike wouldn't humiliate himself beyond repair at today's ceremony. _Whatever goddesses watch over this world, please have mercy..._

To take his mind off all this, Marth whipped open his brand-new blue Smash Bros. 3DSXL to play the virtual version of the fourth tournament, although he doubted it would help as Ike's face still stared at him from the character selection screen. ...No, this wouldn't work. Playing Smash Bros. only reminded Marth again and again of Ike's SBBL. He put away his 3DS, sighing heavily. Ugh... it would be a long wait for Dr. Mario's verdict.

Opening ceremonies would begin soon. Ike would have to miss the first part, but Marth had to be at his very best for today, so he shoved his friend to the back of his mind for now and stood tall. Nintendo had given the instructions to "act normal," but there were too many nerves coursing through everyone in the mansion. Last time, during Brawl, Wario had made a fool of himself by accidentally crashing his bike into the wall during the character entrances. But that was Wario, so nobody cared. Marth, as a prince and future king, had to keep his composure. Ridiculing himself wouldn't do. If it must happen, he would leave that to Ike. Or maybe the infallible Robin, who he knew could always bounce back from anything.

_Calling all smashers to the stage, _said the intercom.

_All right then, _Marth thought. It was time.

XXX

"Welcome one and all to the fourth Super Smash Brothers tournament, Super Smash Brothers... um, we have no catchy ending name for this tournament, sorry!" Master Hand announced, magically projecting his voice so it echoed around the stadium. To prevent rabid fangirls from sabotaging the ceremony, precautions had been put in place. Working Alloy bodyguards were in place around the stage perimeter. False, computer-generated fans "cheered" in the stands. The entire event would be aired live on TVs worlds wide (that is, if the worlds _had_ television).

One by one, the original 8 made their appearances onstage. Mario leapt out of a green pipe with his signature "Let's-a go!" Link appeared in the Gale boomerang's tornado. Samus stepped out of a portal. Fox dropped down from his Arwing. Yoshi rolled onstage in an egg and burst out of it. Donkey Kong exploded out of a DK barrel. Pikachu leapt out of a Pokeball. They waved to the "crowd."

"Give a hand to your original eight founding smashers!" Master Hand said. The "crowd" went wild.

One by one, the veterans who remained from Melee and Brawl (Roy not included) took their places on the stage. Marth spun in a very manly circle as his entrance (don't judge). Ike miraculously managed to maintain a veneer of normalcy, entering exactly like he was supposed to. Marth hoped that it wasn't _just_ a veneer and that Ike really was back to normal. The fans screamed and cheered for every single smasher.

Master Hand floated up to Marth and Ike. "Dr. Mario wants you two back in the office," the hand said.

Marth nodded and stealthily made his way to the teleporters, where he was beamed back to the mansion. Hopefully the fans wouldn't miss him too much.

"...And now, introducing our newcomers!" Master Hand addressed the cameras.

XXX

"So, what's the verdict?" Marth asked the doctor, begging desperately for him to just say that yes, Ike was better, and he could resume his normal life without worrying if his best friend would suddenly go on a chicken rampage.

Dr. Mario consulted his clipboard. "Ike..."

"Yes?"

"...is making progress."

"Yup!" Ike said.

Marth's heart plummeted down to his stomach. "So you mean he's not better yet?"

"Sadly. Ike, unfortunately, seems to have a particularly unusual case of SBBL. It might take a few more weeks, possibly months for him to fully recover."

The prince sat down quietly, face calm while his brain soared out of his skull, screaming in frustration.

XXX

**AN: SMASH BROS IS OUT! I can't believe it! It seems like just last year I was watching the E3 2013 video... oh, wait, it was last year. Never mind.**

**Yesterday, I played Brawl with my brother to enjoy its last moments of glory before it joined Melee and Smash Bros. 64 over in the veterans' corner. Don't worry, Brawl. You're still my favorite. Nothing will ever be equal to your special little spot in my heart. :)**

**So, what will come for the smashers now? I dunno. But, as always, thanks for reading! Reviews are awesome.**

* * *

**_The era of Brawl has ended. The reign of Smash 4 begins._**


	16. And Yet Nothing Has Changed

"Die already, Pandora!" Marth growled at his 3DSXL. He was scrunched up on the sofa, playing _Kid Icarus: Uprising _and currently beating the living daylights out of Amazon Pandora on Intensity 9.0-with a club, too. Contrary to what some might expect, the ungainly clubs, the very opposite of finesse, were Marth's favorite weapon. To him, there was nothing more satisfying than landing a good, strong melee combo on an enemy and hearing that beautiful, sonorous _THWACK! _as the club made contact. It was glorious. Silly Amazon Pandora didn't stand a chance. Skilled club users weren't to be trifled with, and Marth considered himself one of them.

"Nice club," said a dark, somber voice next to the prince's ear.

Marth jolted in shock, whipping his head around to the source of the voice. He almost had a heart attack.

Standing behind him, peering over his shoulder at the 3DS screen, was Pit... but not quite Pit. No, this person was an exact, complete, carbon copy of Pit, down to the smallest detail, but instead of soft blue eyes this person's were a fierce crimson. Ebony hair cascaded over his eyes like with emo anime people. Black teal wings sprouted from his back. Marth recognized him as the character he was playing in the game right now.

It was none other than Dark Pit. Doubtless, one of the many noobies that would arrive post-opening ceremony.

But Marth had plenty of questions. When did he get here? How? And why was he creepily standing there? Marth had enough "secret admirer" stalkers back home...

The prince went with the most important question first. "Uh, how long have you been watching me? You do realize this world is crawling with yaoi shippers..."

Dark Pit's eyes narrowed. Marth thought it made him look positively terrifying, and was glad Pit never did that. One scary emo death angel was more than enough... If the guy was this intimidating normally, Marth didn't even want to think about how he'd be on the battlefield. It seemed Meta Knight had some rivalry. If he wanted to, Dark Pit could become top tier just from _looking _at people.

"Not long. And don't remind me," the dark angel said. "I only came to fight."

"Um, okay," Marth said, going back to beating the snot out of Pandora.

"Ogre Club, huh? Stars on that thing? Value?" Dark Pit asked.

"Uh, 248. Two stars ranged, five and a half stars melee. Ugh, got paralyzed. Stupid heart lasers..."

"That club's pretty good for Light Vs. Dark, I'd bet. Attributes?"

"Uhhh... I think burning plus three, speed plus one, stamina plus two, evasion plus something, and melee combo plus four. Oh wait, and overall defense minus four."

"Hmm. Not too bad, except for the defense attribute."

"Yeah. I kill a lot of people in online mode. Ooh, Pandora's Box!" Marth said, making the mini-Dark Pit onscreen run to a treasure box. The lid flipped open and a barrage of shots blasted out, followed by a Viridi Claws. Marth dodged all the shots and collected the claws.

"Why do you open those?!" Dark Pit demanded.

"Well, they have treasure, even if they do hurt you... Why? Am I not supposed to open them?"

"No! There's a reason they attack you. It's so you don't open them! If you heard the screaming every time one gets opened..."

Marth was about to ask what Dark Pit meant when he was, as usual, interrupted by a super buff mercenary.

"Hi Marth! Hi noobie!" Ike greeted with his customary cheer. He gave Dark Pit a once-over. "Oh, I know you! You're Marth's celebrity crush! Pittoo!"

"M-my what?" Marth spluttered.

Dark Pit bristled. "Call me that _ONE_ more time!" he spat.

"Okay." Ike shrugged. "Hi, Pittoo."

Dark Pit snarled and punched Ike in the face with all the terrible force of a Clubberskull. As expected, Ike didn't flinch or even react. However, Dark Pit, being smarter than the average vulture, stuck Ike in the side with a vicious taser and bounded away.

Ike howled. He leapt after Dark Pit, but the angel was already bolting down a hallway.

"COME BACK HERE!" Ike roared, chasing after him. "YOU BULLY!"

Marth finished off Pandora and, with a weary sigh, plodded heavily after the two.

XXX

"Dr. Mario! Dr. Mario!" Roy yelled, speeding down the hallways towards the doctor's office.

"Yes?" Dr. Mario called from inside his office.

"Dr. Mario! Good news!" Roy flung open the door and burst into the office.

"What is it?" the doctor asked. He set aside an old, dusty picture frame and a letter that had a red wax seal on it. He smiled a bright, genuine smile.

"Okay, so," Roy began, "I checked the Smash Bros. website because it has hidden characters on it now, right? So I was checking to see if I was there, and then I saw you! You're back in!"

Dr. Mario clasped his hands together. "Yes, I just received the news earlier today. Isn't it amazing? I could hardly believe it myself!" He showed Roy the letter. The wax seal was in the shape of a Smash Ball, and that alone was enough for Roy to deduce what the letter said.

"This is great, doctor! I'm really happy for you! And, now that you're in, who's to say I won't be next? There's hope for me yet! Nintendo _can't _deny me again after this!" Roy squealed, imagining the cheers that would erupt from the spectators when he, the unstoppable top tier, stepped back onto the battlefield at last amid a rainfall of roses and confetti to reclaim his former glory upon the throne of championship...

"Thank you, Roy, and best of luck in your endeavors. It would be nice to see you return. After all, Mewtwo left permanently, and Pichu's probably made all sorts of friends without us in Brawl!" The doctor glanced at the picture frame for a second. Something strange, sad maybe, flickered across his features, but before Roy could decide whether he'd imagined it, Dr. Mario rose from his seat and tapped a stack of papers into order. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some old tournament trophies to attend to that haven't been polished in a long, long time..."

He left the room.

Roy took the picture frame and turned it around, wondering what the picture was. He brushed a thick coating of dust off the glass and was hit by a crushing wave of nostalgia.

His own face smiled at him from behind the glass, along with every other smasher that had been in Melee. Everyone looked so much younger and carefree. There was Marth! And Dr. Mario, and Ness, and the old Pikachu, and Zelda, and the Links. The _other_ Links. Roy had heard from new Link that old Link was dead in his own world, surviving only through legends and his descendants. In fact, new Link was a blood-descendant of old Link. Now _that_ was creepy.

Poor Link. Poor Young Link. They had been two (one?) of Roy's best friends in Melee. Now they were dead.

The thought made Roy want to cry.

XXX

"Pittoo!" cried a chipper, high-pitched voice.

"How many times have I told you to stop calling me that, _Pit-Stain?!"_ Dark Pit ground out through clenched teeth as he pelted away from the gargantuan mercenary that was pounding after him.

Sadly, he was knocked to the floor when Pit glomped him. "I haven't seen you in forever! You disappeared after Hades got beat and then you were gone for like months! Maybe even a year! How come you didn't even say hi back once?! Everyone else always says hi back, even Magnus and Dyntos and Poseidon, and don't tell Dyntos but I think he smells weird, and even Cragalanche said '...' once, and they're cool and all but they never play video games with me! I was so bored and there was nothing to do except watch TV and play solo mode but Lady Palutena always tells me not to because it's bad for my eyes and you're the only one who ever agrees to play Smash Bros. with me!" Pit said all in one breath.

"SHUT UP!" Dark Pit screeched, making a futile attempt to wriggle out from under the feathery white lump that was still babbling in ear-bleed inducing, machine gun rapid-fire sentences.

"...and then I went to Viridi's place because she makes the _best_ mint ice cream. Have you ever tasted it? It's sooooo good! Oh yeah, and then while I was playing with her pet Urgles she even said that she had finally taken me off her to-kill list! I mean, I didn't even think Viridi could be so nice 'cause you know she's normally all cranky and then tries to set her Forces of Nature on me and she's always ranting about how she hates me so much..."

"I'M GOING DEAF! SHUT UP ALREADY!" Dark Pit screamed, flailing ever more frantically when he spotted Ike approaching, tailed far behind by Marth. The mercenary's face was none too pleased.

Ike stomped to a halt in front of the heap of tangled angel and pointed at Dark Pit with an angry snort.

"You," he said, "are SO MEAN!" He swung his foot back and kicked the dark angel with all his considerable might.

Pit somersaulted off to a safe landing, but his darker reflection was flung forcefully into a wall. But! This time, there was only a dent left by Ike's unfortunate victim, rather than a hole! Marth was unsure if this was a sign of improvement or of Dark Pit's ridiculous stubbornness and resilience.

"You BULLY!" Ike shouted, producing Ragnell from nowhere and hurling it like a javelin at Dark Pit. The golden blade gleamed as it whistled through the air.

But Dark Pit only sidestepped calmly, catching the sword by the hilt with one hand as it sliced through the air within an inch of his neck. He planted the blade in the ground and wiped away a thin trickle of blood from his lip with the back of his other hand like he was an injured anime protagonist in the final battle right before they make an epic comeback and beat their unbeatable foe.

"Good catch!" Pit cheered and clapped.

Dark Pit smirked with an overconfident little "Hmph" and said, "You just got yourself in some deep sh-"

"NO BAD WORDS!" Marth screamed.

"I was going to say TROUBLE! B-"

"K PLUS RATING!"

"-astard!"

Ike scratched his chin, pondering. "I don't think bastard counts as a bad word." Then his face reverted back to anger. "YOU'LL PAY FOR TASERING ME!"

"Bring it!" Dark Pit spread his arms and wings in a come-at-me-bro fashion.

_Please, Naga and Hylia and whatever other gods are out there, please spare my life, _Marth prayed.

Trouble was about to go down.

(Good thing the _completely_ responsible, considerate, _gracious_ handmaster of the mansion was there to take care of things! Not.)

XXX

**AN: How the time flies...**

**So, Dark Pit is officially in Smash Bros.! I might be the only person who's actually happy that he's in... He'd probably just laugh at you if you gave him character hate. Dr. Mario's back, too! That, I can't say I'm overjoyed about... But, as goes for all characters, I'll give him a chance.**

**Previously on "The Great Lon'qu-Ricken Race of Character Superiority and Overall Awesomeness," Ricken was in the lead. But what's this? They seem to have broken even! And to spice things up even more, a challenger approaches... Bloodied battlefields ring with the tones of his maniacal laughter! All of Plegia, Ylisse, and Valm cower in his fearsome presence. Welcoming the mirthful mage with the eye color no one knows: Henry! Huh, we might have to change the name of this race...**

**Also, I got Blood of Olympus and blazed through it in one day! It wasn't that good compared to the other books, though. :/ But LEO! NICO! *cries***

**PS. That's one of my Ogre Clubs Marth has there... If only I knew how to use it.**


	17. Pittoo Gets Double Trolled

"Um... bye!" Pit said, turning on his heel to make a quick getaway. "Don't get hospitalized, Pittoo!"

"Don't call me that!"

"Okay. Bye, Pittoo!"

"I SAID-"

Dark Pit was interrupted when Ike lunged with a mighty cry of "I FIGHT FOR MY FRIENDS AND CHICKEN!" Marth took several huge paces backward, just for safety. He was content to watch and let the idiots fight by themselves.

"He's totally gonna get hospitalized..." Pit whispered, talking to Palutena through his laurel crown.

Dark Pit scoffed, sidestepping easily. He grabbed his Silver Bow out of thin air, nocking an arrow. He loosed it at Ike, but was trolled when it ricocheted back and forced him to dodge instead.

The arrow only served to further enrage Ike. "THAT'S IT! YOU CROSSED THE LINE!"

"Nu uh!" was Dark Pit's witty retort.

"Yeah huh!" Ike said, stamping his foot (and creating a minor earthquake). He pointed at a chalk line on the ground that Dark Pit had just stepped over. "See?"

"Oh."

"YEAH! YOU AWFUL CREATURE!" Ike bellowed.

He leaned over and picked up Marth, hoisting him above his head. Marth flailed and screamed, "WHY AM I BEING INVOLVED IN THIS?!"

"AAAAHHHHHHHH! IKE NO DON'T THROW MEEEEEE!"

Dark Pit was so startled that he almost got plowed down by the Marth flying at 100 miles per hour straight at his face.

"Ow..." the prince groaned from his spot collapsed in a hole in the wall.

"Sorry!" Ike called. Then he turned his attention back to Dark Pit. "DIE!"

Ike sprang again, but, alas, missed again as his target nimbly rolled away. Dark Pit stuck a foot out and swept Ike's legs out from under him-or, at least, he tried to. Instead, there was a nasty cracking sound as his shin made contact with Ike's ankle.

Dark Pit grimaced in pain and rage as he awkwardly hopped back on one leg, fluttering his wings.

"BIG BULLY!" Ike said, advancing again. He had produced Ragnell from somewhere. In Dark Pit's opinion, that thing ought to be grouped with the baseball bats and other deadly weapons. Ragnell wasn't a _sword; _no, it was a monstrosity. Who even came up with the idea of a blade that hit like a Banzai Bill?! (I mean, seriously! Have you heard the sounds it makes in Brawl? And that was with an unbuff Ike...)

"Tiki, is that you...? No... maybe it's Naga... hey hottie..." Marth muttered deliriously.

Dark Pit hissed in frustration. How would he the top-tier spot from Meta Knight if this bumbling doofus was in the way? He activated the Power of Flight in his wings, lifting into the air. But the little space in the hallway limited his ability to maneuver.

"COME BACK AND FIGHT LIKE A CHICKEN!" Ike roared.

Dark Pit sneered down at him, turning back and accelerating to full speed. He banked and made a sharp 180 at the end of the hallway, shooting toward Ike like a black missile. At the last second, he swung his unbroken foot forward and slammed it into Ike's face with all the deadly striking force of a diving falcon.

Sadly, Ike wasn't affected. His expression remained unchanged as a shoe rammed into his nose and all the bones in Dark Pit's foot shattered into a million tiny pieces.

"Mmm, yeah..." Marth murmured. "I loooooove cotton candy..."

Dark Pit bit his lip to keep from screaming like a sissy (because that was for weaklings and Marth). He flapped backwards, making sure to whap Ike in the face with his wing, and fled with as much dignity as he could muster, shooting a venomous _I'll murder you later _look over his shoulder.

"That should teach that bully a lesson!" Ike grumbled.

XXX

_Hello again, Roy._

"Wha? Who?" Roy stammered, looking up from training his Talonflame in Pokemon Y and searching for the source of the voice that had just spoken in his head.

_It has been long since our last meeting._

"Who's that?" Roy said. He knew this weirdo? Didn't seem like it. ...But come to think of it, that voice sure did sound familiar... Déjà vu, maybe?

_You would not recognize your old comrade?_

"Um, no."

_Very well. _A spot in front of Roy shimmered, and a large, humanoid purple Pokemon materialized into visibility.

Roy's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "MEWTWO?!"

_Yes, human. It is I. Once again have I been called to arms among my mortal brothers._

"B-b-but! I thought you left for good!"

_That was my original intention when they notified me that I would not be returning for Brawl. But even the most powerful Pokemon in the world does not refuse the call of the gods. What of you, Roy? I was under the impression that you were cut as well. And if you are returning, I have not seen evidence of it yet._

"Huh? Oh, well... yeah... I'm just visiting..." Roy mumbled. Jeez, Mewtwo, way to rub salt in the wound!

_Ah, _the Pokemon said sagely. _I know Dr. Mario has returned too, and I understand your anguish, even if I cannot feel it myself. As annoying as you were in Melee, it would be a treat to see our old crew back in action..._

Yeah, tell me about it, Roy thought. First the doc, _who is also a clone_, gets his invitation back in. And now Mewtwo! The whole gang of Brawl rejects was here... minus him. Ouch.

The faintest flicker of a smile crossed Mewtwo's stolid features. It_ has been a pleasure seeing you again. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must properly... _attend to _some unwelcome impostors._

"Impostors?"

Mewtwo nodded, narrowing its eyes. _Yes. The gen-4 one and the gen-6 one. I believe their names are Lucario and Greninja._

"Wait, _impostors?! _No, wait, Mewtwo, they're just friends-" Roy began.

But the Pokemon had already vanished.

XXX

"See, Lady Palutena! I told you he would get hospitalized! You owe me a trip to Mother Moo's!" Pit cried in triumph.

"All right, Pit. I guess I underestimated Ike's power. After all, you do know him better than I do," Palutena said, throwing up her hands in false defeat.

"Uh huh! I told you! And you owe me ice cream."

"I'll take you sometime next week. So, how bad is Pittoo?"

"Oh ho ho, he's _really _bad. I gave him about three minutes to get beaten up, and sure enough, he was already there when I went to see Dr. Mario. Doc says that it's gonna be at least five whole _days _before he can even go around on crutches!"

Palutena whistled. "Wow. _That _bad?"

"Yup. Oh yeah, that reminds me. Halloween's coming up."

"Who do you want to go as this year?"

"Well, seeing as Pittoo's out of commission for the next few days, I wanna go as him, and be _extra _nice to everybody, and then when Pittoo gets better and then he goes and talks to everyone, he'll be so confused!" Pit bubbled.

The goddess smiled devilishly. "Beautiful," she said.

"I know, right?"

Palutena took up her staff and tapped Pit on the head with it. Instantly, his color scheme changed from white to black, as if all the brightness were being leached out of him. His aquamarine eyes melted into garnet pools.

"Wow, thanks!" Pit said, admiring his newly-darkened feathers. "Wow, my voice sounds so weird! Is this what Pittoo has to sound like?"

"I _PIT_y Pittoo," Palutena said, snickering at her own pun.

"Heh. 'Seriously, that is the last time I want to hear Pittoo!'" Pit quoted in a perfect imitation of the real Dark Pit. "This is so cool!"

Palutena patted him on the head. "Go wreak havoc, my little trooper," she said, watching him run off to conquer the world.

XXX

**AN: Seems like the gaps between updates just keep getting longer and longer... But don't worry. I swore to myself that I wouldn't become one of those people who start a story and then suddenly it never updates again. I SWORE IT. I SWORE!**

**...Previously on the Great Lonqu-Ricken-Henry-Cherche-Panne-everyone Race of Character Superiority and General Awesomeness... ah, I give up. They're all precious. Wait a sec... you want me... to ch...ch...choose... favORITES?! *screams***

**I haven't been doing nothing over the update gap! I made a deviantART! Of course, I'm still theunspokenprophet there. Just like everywhere! :D**

**As always, thanks for reading! The review box is right there... come on, click it!**


	18. Everyone Hates Pittoo (What's New?)

_NO! PLEASE HAVE MERCY!_

"Gre, greninja!"

_Mercy? From what the humans call the most savage of all Pokemon? Ha! Impudent fools. Did you not expect what would be sure to come when you agreed to join this infernal tournament? _Mewtwo's eyes lit up murderously.

_I didn't- I was- I had no idea! _Lucario pleaded, emanating palpable waves of fear-aura.

_Yet I recall you being quite an avid fan of the Melee tournament in its later years. Do not think that you have gone unnoticed by me._

"Greninja! Gre, gre! Greninja?"

_Hmm. You indeed did not interfere with the jackal's return, or with my own glorious one._

"Gre!" Greninja nodded its head vigorously, eyes wide and desperate.

_...Very well. Leave, then, before I change my mind._

Greninja hopped away hastily, grateful to have been spared from Mewtwo's wrath.

_Now, as for you, jackal..._

_They sent me an invitation! How was I to refuse?_

_Please. My time is not yours to waste. Even if you are an aura-user, what use is there in lying to a mind-reader? I know that you knew that the gods knew if you were to be added in Brawl, then my chances of inclusion would be drastically decreased. I should have returned! I am the most powerful Pokemon of all! How could I have been replaced with such a sniveling kit as you?!_

Lucario cowered in the face of Mewtwo's whirling rage._ I- I- please! I beg you! It was my wish to become a smasher! I couldn't turn it down!_

_And still it matters so little. PREPARE TO BE OBLITERATED! _Mewtwo's hands were engulfed by blue fire.

_NO!_

The Psychic Pokemon raised a hand to incinerate Lucario.

_PLEASE!_

Mewtwo gathered up its formidable psychic energy. Lucario screamed and tried to make himself as small as possible, sure that he would soon become a blackened patch on the floor. He shriveled up into a ball and covered his face with his paws, but the strike never came. Lucario dared to glance up and saw that Mewtwo had turned away, lashing its tail.

_At least, I would destroy you, but I am not permitted to fight until the spring. Be thankful that you have been spared. Perhaps if you prove yourself worthy come springtime, I will let you live._

Mewtwo vanished, leaving a very terrified Lucario to fear for his life.

XXX

"Pittoo!"

_Spare me the agony... _Dark Pit mentally sighed as he crutched away as fast as he could, praying (not to Palutena, of course) that some unknown force would suddenly appear and destroy his infuriating doppelganger. If he hadn't gotten extremely strict and specific orders from Dr. Mario to NOT go face-kicking people for another week or so, and ESPECIALLY not right after he stepped out of the office and got assaulted by Pit, he would have struck down that ridiculous angel himself. Sadly, that was not to be the case.

"You're finally out of the hospital! And you missed Halloween! The houses this year were so cool! I saw this one house that had a fog machine, except the fog came out in bubbles and when you popped the bubble it would turn into a little burst of fog! It was so awesome! Don't you think! I want a fog machine like that. I'd fill the fog with rainbow food coloring so then there would be multicolored fog bubbles, like M&M's! Oh yeah, I got a lot of candy this year too! You can have all the Almond Joys, I don't like them. And a lot of people said my wings looked really realistic! Isn't that funny? Except one time I forgot to keep my wings still, and then I flapped them and gave the person in the house a heart attack, and then the other people had to call an ambulance and that was sooo awkward. Oh yeah and I fed and walked your Nintendogs for you! Fluffybuns found a rainbow afro and then rolled in a puddle. And then Pandora kept finding useless wooden sticks. And she tried to eat a lot of trash. Why did you name your dog Pandora anyway?" Pit gushed to an apathetic and extremely annoyed Dark Pit.

"She finds useless wooden sticks and trash because she hates me. You weren't supposed to walk her. I only have her to TORTURE her!" Dark Pit snarled.

Pit was outraged. "What?! What kind of sick monster buys a dog only to torture it?"

"It's named Pandora for a reason. And I hate Pomeranians. They annoy me. So it's a win-win. For me, that is."

"You hate Pomeranians?! Well, I dunno, they are kind of high-pitched and annoying. I like huskies. They remind me of wolves. I don't get why humans think wolves are so scary. They like me a lot, maybe they don't like humans because the humans always try to kill them..." Pit said.

Dark Pit sincerely wished that he could have this maddening cast off his foot already so he could go back to kicking people (minus Ike) in the face. And in the stomach. And other painful places.

"...Hey Pittoo?" Pit asked.

"Don't call me that."

"How come you hate my guts so much?"

Dark Pit rolled his eyes, wondering how his mirror reflection could be so impossibly thick-headed. "Maybe because you're an insufferable f-"

"HEY DARKIE!" bellowed a certain overly buff but slowly recovering mercenary.

"Wow, that's even worse than Pittoo!" Pit said, and for once, Dark Pit agreed.

Ike came barreling down the hallway and narrowly avoided Dark Pit, but at the cost of crashing into regular Pit. Pit was flung through the ceiling. A resounding "Falcon SHRILL, GIRLY SCREAM!" was audible from through the hole he created.

"Whew, saved the chocolates," Ike said, holding aloft a rectangular dark brown box and dusting a few stray feathers off his shirt.

"Get away from me," Dark Pit blurted instantly, almost by reflex.

"But the chocolates!"

"I don't want them," Dark Pit growled, although his eyes betrayed him, greedily darting from the box to Ike. Ike to box. Box to Ike. Chocolate was chocolate, after all. He began calculating how long it would take to activate the Power of Flight, taser Ike with a crutch, steal the chocolates, and escape, but he hadn't counted on Ike willingly handing them over.

"They're for you," Ike said, extending the box like a peace offering. "It's common courtesy to apologize after you hospitalize someone for a week. Marth told me so."

Dark Pit narrowed his eyes in suspicion (and confusion). Common courtesy? He had never heard of such a thing. This entire act was disgusting, and the chocolates had probably been laced with poison. It was no secret that most of the smashers in the mansion had either despised him or feared him from the start, even though he had done no wrong. In fact, the only person he could really trust was, ironically, Pit.

"Because of you, I have to wear this infernal cast for at least another week. And you think a box of your mortal, non-magical chocolate will fix this? I don't want them," Dark Pit repeated firmly, and with an underlying threat in his tone. Accepting was weakness, and he would show none of that. He would rise above the other smashers alone, and when he was powerful and they were begging for his attention, he would give them the same cold shoulder they turned to him. It didn't matter if he made everyone hate him; what difference would it make? The whole lot of them hated him anyway.

"But they're for you!" Ike protested. "As proof that I'm really, honestly sorry I broke all your foot bones."

Perhaps Ike would have been successful with a more merciful being, but merciful, Dark Pit was not. He had been created knowing only independence and was tempered to reject all acts of kindness directed towards him.

"I said NO!" The dark angel leaned forward and balanced on one crutch, pivoting and knocking the box out of Ike's hand with the other crutch while simultaneously activating the Power of Flight. He shot over Ike's head and out an open window before the mercenary even realized what had happened.

Disheartened, Ike glumly meandered away, leaving the box of chocolates lying on the floor.

Only the author (ME! :D) could tell you that Dark Pit later returned and ate every single chocolate in the box. Chocolate was chocolate, after all.

Then he burned the box.

XXX

"Hey, Ike! I believe we're scheduled for a match in fifteen-" Robin began. "Ike?"

It took a moment for Ike to register that someone was trying to get his attention. "Huh? Oh hi, Robin."

"What's up? You don't look so hot."

"Oh, well, Pittoo got mad at me. And all I was trying to do was apologize for horribly injuring him and confining him to crutches for at least another week! What a meanie."

"Aw, it's all right. That guy's mean to everyone. But moping around won't do you any good! You've got a team battle coming up. Me and Lucina versus you and Marth! And let me tell you, Lucina doesn't hold back. I mean, she even tried to kill me once. And believe me, I don't like going easy either. You'll get beaten horribly if you're not focused!"

"Yeah... I won't get beaten!" Ike said, perking up.

"That's the spirit!"

"I'll beat everyone! And then I'll show Pittoo what for! That stupid bully, I'll beat him!"

"Umm... that's not the spirit..." Robin said, but Ike continued as if he hadn't heard.

A maniacal light came into Ike's eyes. "I'll _destroy_ that dummy! I'll _murder _him."

He ran off, leaving Robin standing.

The tactician slowly lifted a hand to his forehead.

"What monster have I created?" he cried softly to himself.

XXX

**AN: And so begins a beautiful rivalry. Sad to say, Pit's plan to make people like Pittoo better didn't work. I think he needs to work on being a better actor.**

**Hmm, I don't have much to say this time. Thanks for reading and see you next time!**


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